Skip to main content

Full text of "Lord Byron and some of his contemporaries; with Recollections of the author's life, and of his visit to Italy"

See other formats 


She  3.  <L  Saul  Collection 

Of 

Wineteentb  Century 
literature 


purcbaseo  in  part 
tbrougb  a  contribution  to  tbe 
Xibrar^  jfunbs  maoe  bp  tbe 
Department    of   )£nglisb    in 

tlniversttp  College. 


LORD    BYRON 


cn,  futluhed,  f-y  Bavy  Cp!burn,,lfex'  Bia-lina&n.  5crf'J3?S 


AND 


SOME  OF  HIS  CONTEMPORARIES; 

WITH 

RECOLLECTIONS  OF 
THE    AUTHOR'S    LIFE, 

AND    or    HIS 

VISIT  TO  ITALY. 


BY   LEIGH   HUNT. 


"  It  is  for  slaves  to  lie,  and  for  freemen  to  speak  truth. 

"  In  the  examples,  which  1  here  hring  in,  of  what  I  have  heard,  read, 
done,  or  said,  I  have  forbid  myself  to  dare  to  alter  even  the  most  light 
and  indifferent  circumstances.  My  conscience  does  not  falsify  one  tittle. 
What  my  ignorance  may  do,  I  cannot  say."  MONTAIGNE. 


SECOND  EDITION. 

IN   TWO   VOLUMES. 
VOL.  I. 


LONDON: 

HENRY  COLBURN,  NEW  BURLINGTON  STREET. 
1828. 


LONDON  : 
PRINTED    BY    8.  AND  R.  BENTLEY, 

Dorset  Street,  Fleet  Street. 


V      I 


PREFACE. 


THE  reader  will  oblige  me  by  letting  me 
explain  to  him,  how  the  volume,  here  offered 
to  his  perusal,  came  to  be  what  it  is.  I  think 
it  due  to  myself  to  make  the  explanation ; 
and  as  a  conscientious  reader  of  the  pre- 
faces of  other  men,  I  may  request  his  indul- 
gence without  scruple. 

The  work  was  originally  intended  to  be 
nothing  but  a  selection  from  the  Author's 
writings,  preceded  by  a  biographical  sketch. 
I  engaged  for  it,  together  with  another 
work,  as  soon  as  I  returned  to  England ; 
but  the  delight  of  finding  myself  among 

ft    9 
<t     ^ 


IV  PREFACE. 

my  old  scenes  and  friends,  the  prospect  of 
better  health  and  resources,  the  feeling  of 
the  first  taste  of  comfort  (a  novelty  unknown 
for  years),  and  the  very  dread  of  seeing  this 
new  piece  of  rose-colour  in  my  existence 
vanish  before  the  re-exertion  of  my  brain 
and  the  ink-spots  it  produces  between  me 
and  the  sun, — all  conspired  with  bad  habits 
of  business  and  the  sorriest  arithmetic,  to 
make  me  avail  myself  unawares  of  the  hand- 
some treatment  of  my  publisher,  and  indulge 
in  too  long  a  holiday.  I  wrote,  but  I  wrote 
little :  I  had  not  even  yet  learned  how  much 
I  might  have  done  with  that  little,  if  done 
regularly;  and  the  consequence  was,  that 
time  crept  on,  uneasiness  returned,  and  I 
found  myself  painfully  anxious  to  show  my 
employer  how  much  I  would  fain  do  for 
him.  The  worst  of  it  was,  that  the  sick 
hours  which  I  dreaded  on  a  renewal  of  work 
returned  upon  me,  aggravated  by  my  not 


PREFACE.       x  V 

having  dared  to  encounter  them  sooner;  and 
my  anxieties  became  thus  increased.  I  wish- 
ed to  make  amends  for  loss  of  time :  the 
plan  of  the  book  became  altered;  and  I  fi- 
nally made  up  my  mind  to  enlarge  and  enrich 
it  with  an  account  of  Lord  Byron. 

It  had  been  wondered,  when  I  returned  to 
England,  how  it  was  that  I  did  not  give  the 
public  an  account  of  my  intimacy  with  Lord 
Byron.  I  was  told  that  I  should  put  an  end 
to  a  great  deal  of  false  biography,  and  do 
myself  a  great  service  besides.  My  refusal 
of  this  suggestion  will  at  least  show,  that  I 
was  in  no  hurry  to  do  the  work  for  my 
own  sake;  and  to  say  the  truth,  it  would 
never  have  been  done  at  ah1,  but,  for  the  cir- 
cumstances above-mentioned.  I  must  even 
confess,  that  such  is  my  dislike  of  these 
personal  histories,  in  which  it  has  been  my 
lot  to  become  a  party,  that  had  I  been  rich 
enough,  and  could  have  repaid  the  handsome 


VI  PREFACE. 

conduct  of  Mr.  Colburn  with  its  proper  in- 
terest, my  first  impulse  on  finishing  the  work 
would  have  been  to  put  it  into  the  fire.  Not 
that  I  have  not  written  it  conscientiously,  and 
that  it  is  not  in  every  respect  fit  to  appear; 
but  it  has  long  ceased  to  be  within  my  no- 
tions of  what  is  necessary  for  society,  to  give 
an  unpleasant  account  of  any  man;  and  as  to 
my  own  biography,  1  soon  became  tired  of 
that.  It  is  true,  I  should  have  entered  into  it 
in  greater  detail,  and  endeavoured  to  make  the 
search  into  my  thoughts  and  actions  of  some 
use,  seeing  that  I  had  begun  it  at  all;  but 
I  was  warned  off  this  ground  as  impossible 
on  account  of  others,  and  gladly  gave  it  up. 
The  Byron  part  of  the  work  I  could  not  so 
well  manage.  What  was  to  be  told  of  the 
Noble  Poet,  involved  of  necessity  a  painful 
retrospect;  and  humanize  as  I  may,  and  as  I 
trust  I  do,  upon  him  as  well  as  every  thing 
else, — and  certain  as  I  am,  that  although  I 


PREFACE.  Vii 

look  upon  this  or  that  man  as  more  or  less 
pleasant  and  admirable,  I  partake  of  none  of 
the  ordinary  notions  of  merit  and  demerit  with 
regard  to  any  one, — I  could  not  conceal  from 
myself,  on  looking  over  the  manuscript,  that 
in  renewing  my  intercourse  with  him  in  ima- 
gination, I  had  involuntarily  felt  an  access  of 
the  spleen  and  indignation,  which  I  experi- 
enced as  a  man  who  thought  himself  ill- 
treated.  With  this,  to  a  certain  extent,  the 
account  is  coloured,  though  never  with  a 
shadow  of  untruth  ;  nor  have  I  noticed  a 
great  deal  that  I  should  have  done,  had  I 
been  in  the  least  vindictive,  which  is  a  vice 
I  disclaim.  If  I  know  any  two  things  in 
the  world,  and  have  any  two  good  qualities 
to  set  off  against  many  defects,  it  is  that  I 
am  not  vindictive,  and  that  I  speak  the  truth. 
I  have  not  told  all :  for  I  have  no  right  to 
do  so.  In  the  present  case  it  would  also  be 
inhumanity,  both  to  the  dead  and  the  living. 


VU1  PREFACE. 

But  what  I  have  told  is  not  to  be  gainsaid. 
Perhaps  had  I  felt  Lord  Byron's  conduct  less 
than  I  did,  I  should  have  experienced  less  of 
it.  Flattery  might  have  done  much  with 
him ;  and  I  felt  enough  admiration  of  his 
talents,  and  sympathy  with  his  common  na- 
ture, to  have  given  him  all  the  delight  of 
flattery  without  the  insincerity  of  it,  had  it 
been  possible.  But  nobody,  who  has  not  tried 
it,  knows  how  hard  it  is  to  wish  to  love  a 
man,  and  to  find  the  enthusiasm  of  this  long- 
ing worse  than  repelled.  It  was  the  death  of 
my  friend  Shelley,  and  my  own  want  of  re- 
sources, that  made  me  add  this  bitter  discovery 
to  the  sum  of  my  experience.  The  first  time 
Lord  Byron  found  I  was  in  want,  was  the 
first  time  he  treated  me  with  disrespect.  I 
am  not  captious :  I  have  often  been  remon- 
strated with  for  not  showing  a  stronger  sense 
of  enmity  and  ill-usage:  but  to  be  obliged, 
in  the  common  sense  of  the  word,  and  dis- 


PREFACE.  IX 

obliged  at  the  same  time,  not  only  in  my 
reasonablest  expectations,  but  in  the  tenderest 
point  of  my  nature,  was  what '  I  could  not 
help  feeling,  whether  I  had  told  the  world  of 
it  or  not.  Besides,  Lord  Byron  was  not  candid 
with  me.  He  suffered  himself  to  take  mea- 
sures, and  be  open  to  representations,  in  which 
I  was  concerned,  without  letting  me  know : 
and  I  know  of  no  safety  of  intercourse  on 
these  terms,  especially  where  it  should  be  all 
sincerity  or  nothing. 

Nevertheless,  I  subscribe  so  heartily  to  a 
doctrine  eloquently  set  forth*  by  Mr.  Hazlitt, 
— that  whatever  is  good  and  true  in  the  works 
of  a  man  of  genius,  eminently  belongs  to  and 
is  a  part  of  him,  let  him  partake  as  he  will 
of  common  infirmities, — that  I  cannot  without 
regret  think  of  the  picture  I  have  drawn  of 
the  infirmities  of  Lord  Byron,  common  or 
uncommon,  nor  omit  to  set  down  this  con- 

*  "  In  the  "  Plain  Speaker,"  vol.  ii.  p.  418. 


X-  PREFACE. 

fession  of  an  unwilling  hand.  Fecit  mcerens. 
Let  it  be  turned  against  myself,  if  it  ought. 
The  same  may  be  said  of  my  remarks  on 
Mr.  Hazlitt.*  If  no  man  reduces  himself  to 

* 

a  greater  necessity  for  it  than  he,  by  the  way- 
wardness and  cruelty  of  his  temper,  no  man 
deserves  it  more  for  the  cuts  and  furrows 
which  his  temper  ploughs  in  his  own  face, 
and  the  worship  which  he  pays  to  truth  and 
beauty  when  it  is  not  upon  him.  When  we 
see  great  men  capable  of  being  inhuman  in 

*  Since  writing  this  Preface,  the  article  here  alluded  to 
has  been  omitted,  though  not  on  Mr.  Hazlitt's  account,  or 
my  own  ;  for  however  I  might  regret  speaking  disagreeable 
truths  of  any  man,  much  more  of  one  whose  unquestionable 
love  of  truth  would  have  reconciled  him  to  the  hearing  them, 
the  article  had  quite  enough  of  what  was  panegyrical  in  it  to 
do  him  justice.  But  more  readers  might  have  mistaken  the 
object  of  it,  than  was  desirable ;  and  Mr.  Hazlitt  is  ready 
enough,  at  all  times,  to  save  others  the  necessity  of  exhibit- 
ing his  defects.  Twenty  such  articles  would  not  have  put 
an  end  to  the  good  understanding  between  us  j  so  genuine 
indeed  is  his  love  of  truth,  violently  as  his  passions  may 
sometimes  lead  him  to  mistake  it. 


PREFACE.  XI 

some  things,  while  they  are  all  over  humanity 
in  others,  and  add  to  the  precious  stock  of 
human  emotion,  one  is  frightened  to  think 
what  mistakes  we  may  commit  in  our  own 
self-knowledge.  I,  for  one,  willingly  concede 
that  the  reader  may  know  me  better  than 
myself,  and  punish  me  in  his  thought  accord- 
ingly. Let  me  have  only  the  benefit  of  the 
concession.  I  have  been  forced  to  give  up, 
in  my  time,  too  many  dreams  of  self-love,  to 
deny  myself  the  consolation  of  candour. 

The  account  of  Lord  Byron  was  not  in- 
tended to  stand  first  in  the  book.  I  should 
have  kept  it  for  a  climax.  My  own  remi- 
niscences, I  fear,  coming  after  it,  will  be 
like  bringing  back  the  Moselle,  after  devils 
and  Burgundy.  Time  also,  as  well  as  place, 
is  violated;  and  the  omission  of  a  good  part 
of  the  autobiography,  and  substitution  of 
detached  portraits  for  inserted  ones,  have 
given  altogether  a  different  look  to  the  pub- 


Xll  PREFACE. 

lication  from  what  was  contemplated  at  first. 
But  my  publisher  thought  it  best ;  perhaps 
it  is  so :  and  I  have  only  to  hope,  that  in 
adding  to  the  attractions  of  the  title-page, 
it  will  not  make  the  greater  part  of  the 
work  seem  unworthy  of  it. 


PREFACE 

TO  THE   SECOND   EDITION. 


THE  appearance  of  this  cheaper  edition  will 
put  an  end,  I  hope,  to  the  misconceptions 
occasioned  by  partial  extracts  :  at  least  with  all 
honest  readers  who  shall  see  it.  To  others  of 
that  class,  if  I  had  them  within  hearing,  I 
should  say,  that  they  go  counter  to  their  own 
principles,  or  perhaps  are  not  quite  so  unwil- 
ling to  think  evil  as  they  suppose,  when  they 
condemn  a  man  without  hearing  the  whole  of 
his  case,  and  without  knowing  all  that  he  has  to 
say,  of  himself  as  well  as  of  others.  But  these, 
I  trust,  are  few  in  comparison  with  my  honest 


XIV  PREFACE    TO 

and  hearty  defenders, — friends  indeed, — for 
they  burst  upon  me  when  I  most  needed 
them. 

As  for  misrepresentations  arising  from  dis- 
honesty, or  from  ignorance,  or  a  passionate 
mixture  of  both,  I  am  too  well  aware  of  a 
certain  quarter  of  the  press  not  to  have  been 
prepared  for  them  ;  and  have  too  little  re- 
spect for  it,  to  feel  them  more  than  I  ought. 
It  is  in  the  nature  of  things  for  those  who 
differ  with  society,  to  be  misconceived  even 
by  the  best  men,  who  are  not  very  discern- 
ing :  how  much  more  must  they  reckon 
upon  the  attacks  and  mis-statements  of  those, 
whom  a  thousand  fancied  interests  and  mor- 
tified self-loves  enlist  on  the  side  of  abuse? 
The  public  themselves,  as  a  body,  have  their 
vices  ;  and  conscious  of  practising  a  good  deal 
of  deception  with  one  another,  and  persuading 
themselves  it  is  unavoidable,  are  disposed  to 
prefer  a  good  regular  scandal-monger  whom 


THE    SECOND    EDITION.  XV 

they  can  despise,  before  a  humanist  who 
speaks  the  truth  in  zeal  and  candour,  let  his 
sympathy  with  mankind  at  large  be  never  so 
unequivocal.  It  is  true,  I  believe  he  ulti- 
mately makes  his  way  with  them.  They 
feel  it  to  be  their  interest  that  he  should; 
and  they  learn  even  to  bring  out  their  vir- 
tues at  the  warmth  of  his  belief  in  virtue. 
But  meanwhile  it  is  only  by  an  effort  of 
generosity,  that  any  man  implicated  in  the 
present  state  of  things,  can  think  the  best  of 
another,  whose  faults  differ  with  his  own, 
and  whose  good  qualities  appear  to  rebuke 
him. 

All  this  will  not  hinder  me  from  continuing 
to  be  sincere.  I  shall  remain  so  to  my  dying 
day,  knowing  what  an  effect  one  strenuous 
example  has  upon  society,  contrary  to  what 
is  eternally  said  to  the  reverse ;  and  being  of 
opinion,  that  the  world  is  lost  over  and  over 
again,  solely  by  people's  losing  their  hopes  of 


XVI  PREFACE    TO 

it  in  middle  life.  And  I  shall  comfort  my- 
self under  mistake  and  calumny  meanwhile, 
by  reflecting,  that  calumny  itself  is  but  a  part 
of  mistake  ;  and  that  in  thinking  myself  nei- 
ther a  bit  better  nor  worse  than  any  other 
man  (which  is  what  I  think  of  all  men,  for 
they  are  all  creatures  of  circumstance),  I  have 
a  right  both  to  the  task  which  circumstances 
have  put  into  my  hands,  and  to  the  best- 
natured  construction  that  can  be  put  upon 
my  own  errors. 

Agreeably  to  these  opinions,  but  protest- 
ing at  the  same  time  against  any  conclusion 
to  be  drawn  from  the  confession,  apart  from 
a  knowledge  of  all  which  this  book  contains,  I 
frankly  avow,  that  as  far  as  the  sincerity  in  it 
has  taken  a  splenetic  turn,  which  was  a  thing 
unnecessary,  I  wish  it  had  never  been  writ- 
ten. I  have  other  reasons  also  for  the  regret, 
which  are  not  so  easy  of  explanation ;  though  I 
should  have  entered  very  freely  into  them,  had 


THE    SECOND    EDITION.  XV11 

the  hostility  I  have  provoked  taken  a  more  ge- 
nerous turn.  I  can  only  hope,  that  in  the  long 
run,  the  very  defect  will  be  of  use  to  the  world ; 
but  speaking  for  myself  in  the  meantime,  I 
confess  I  have  no  wish  to  be  thought  ill  of  by 
any  body  ;  and  the  fault  (singularly  enough) 
is  at  variance  with  what  I  have  said  against  it 
in  the  book,  when  I  speak  of  some  of  my 
former  writings.  But  even  this  inconsistency 
may  serve  to  show,  how  much  I  was  bent  upon 
making  true  portraitures,  rather  than  hostile 
ones  : — it  was  any  thing  but  hostility  which 
made  me  take  the  pencil  in  hand,  as  I  have 
shown  in  the  former  preface ;  and  the  reader 
may  smile  at  my  simplicity  (though  there  is 
a  lesson  for  him  in  it,  if  he  does)  when  I 
state,  that  in  the  sharpest  things  which  I 
have  written  of  some  of  my  adversaries,  I 
thought  rather  to  have  awakened  their  re- 
morse, than  roused  in  them  a  new  spirit  of 
aggression.  It  is  true,  to  injure  produces  a 
desire  to  injure  again ;  so  naturally  impatient 
VOL.  i.  b 


XV111  PREFACE    TO 

is  humanity  of  the  very  thought  of  being 
unjust.  But  aware  of  this  cause  of  the  infir- 
mity, (which  to  know  handsomely  is  to  over- 
come) and  anxious  to  make  amends  for  any 
wrong  pointed  out  to  me,  I  am  always  fancying 
that  others  are  willing  to  go  through  the  same 
reflections,  ajid  seat  themselves  as  tranquilly  at 
the  end  of  them.  I  forget  that  you  cannot 
arrive  at  any  superiority  of  candour,  by  what- 
ever process  of  adversity  and  mortification,  but 
the  tone  it  gives  you  serves  only  to  exasperate 
an  uncandid  enemy. 

Among  twenty  articles  which  I  understand 
have  been  written  against  me  in  various  pub- 
lications, one  has  appeared  in  the  Quarterly 
Review,  such  as  I  should  no  more  have  no- 
ticed, or  looked  at,  than  the  others,  had  it 
not  been  for  a  pretended  fact  or  two,  which 
it  may  be  as  well  to  set  aside.  It  has  been 
well  observed,  that  to  answer  these  Black- 
wood  people  properly,  (for  the  Review,  it 
seems,  is  now  connected  with  the  unprincipled 


THE    SECOND    EDITION.  XlX 

calumniators,  and  convicted  cowards  of  that 
gang,  and  the  article  in  question  has  all  the 
marks  of  being  written  by  one  of  them,)  it 
would  be  necessary  to  set  up  a  work  like  their 
own,  in  which  truth  and  decency  should  be 
treated  with  avowed  contempt ;  no  connexion 
spared,  however  private;  and  people's  very 
lameness  and  calamities  thrust  in  their  teeth, 
as  if  they  were  crimes.  And  indeed  it  would 
be  no  wonder,  some  day,  if  some  such  thing 
were  to  happen ;  and  a  pretty  Devil-on-Two- 
Sticks'  view  afforded  us,  by  persons  more  angry 
than  conscientious,  of  all  that  has  been  done, 
and  can  be  fancied,  among  the  hypocrites  of  the 
establishment.  But  this,  at  all  events,  is  not  a 
task  for  me  ;  who,  besides  being  hampered  with 
humanities,  can  see  no  reason  for  objecting  to 
the  use  of  falsehood  by  others,  if  we  can  per- 
suade ourselves  it  is  warrantable  in  us.  Others 
might  pretend,  that  it  was  as  good  in  their 
hands,  and  for  some  like  benefit  of  re-action. 

I  2 


XX  PREFACE    TO 

The  article  in  the  Quarterly  is  of  the  old 
description  of  things  of  this  kind, — shallow  and 
mean ;  colouring  all,  as  it  goes,  to  suit  its  pur- 
poses; criticising  the  pretensions  of  another  with 
nothing  but  airs  and  assumptions  ;  and  paying 
the  cause  it  worships  the  usual  happy  compli- 
ment, of  thinking  falsehood  and  malignity 
necessary  to  its  support.  The  sole  object  is  to 
put  the  book  down ;  to  put  it  down, — not  be- 
cause there  is  nothing  in  it,  or  it  is  not  true, 
(for  the  Reviewer  could  as  little  write  it,  as  he 
could  imitate  the  truth  of  it,)  but  because  it  is 
full  of  a  sincerity  and  speculation  equally  hate- 
ful to  the  "  rottenness  in  the  state  of  Den- 
mark ;"  and  this  sincerity  is  to  be  put  down  by 
falsehood !  and  this  speculation  by  dullness !  a 
mode  of  settling  things,  which  luckily  is  im- 
possible in  the  long  run,  and  is  far  less  easy 
than  it  used  to  be  for  the  time.  Yes,  as  the 
Reviewer  repeats  with  an  hysterical  impulse, 
"  the  schoolmaster  is  abroad."  "  Twopenny 


THE    SECOND    EDITION.  XXI 

trash"  has  got  beyond  Six  Shilling ;  and  hun- 
dreds take  up  the  Quarterly  Review  and  laugh 
at  it,  who,  a  dozen  years  back,  would  have  heard 
the  canting  rogue  at  his  half-way  house,  and 
thought  there  was  something  in  him.  Mr. 
Murray  should  really  keep  a  more  sober  eye  on 
the  times,  and  get  cleverer  men  to  do  his  work ; 
for  public  knowledge  is  advancing,  while  he  is 
dozing ;  and  the  old  mediocrity  will  not  do, 
however  malignant.  An  additional  portion  of 
servility  was  still  less  desirable.  His  new 
writer,  with  a  solemnity  that  would  better  have 
become  the  old  lady  in  the  Castle  of  Tillietud- 
lem,  than  a  modern  pretender  to  literature, 
talks  of  "  high  rank,"  as  if  it  were  one  of  the 
cardinal  virtues.  Temperance,  sobriety,  and 
"  high  rank,"  he  thinks,  (which,  by  the  way,  is 
not  considerate  towards  his  employer,)  are  quali- 
ties that  become  a  young  gentleman ;  but  tem- 
perance and  sobriety  may  be  wanting,  and  the 
matter  decently  hushed  up,  provided  there  be 


XXII  PREFACE    TO 

"  high  rank."  The  mention  of  the  deficiency 
is  impolite  and  unedifying  ;  not  to  pay  homage 
to  the  possession,  is  unfeeling. 

Agreeably  to  this  system  of  morals,  it  is 
curious  to  see,  in  his  review  of  the  present 
work,  what  a  number  of  things,  extracts  from 
letters,  &c.  are  brought  in  to  tell  in  Lord 
Byron's  favour,  which  really  tell  against  him, 
and  furnish  aggravated  proofs  of  his  little 
claim  to  be  esteemed.  Among  these  are  his 
virulence  against  Mr.  Keats  and  others ;  his 
remark,  (in  a  spirit  of  infinite  aristocratical 
absurdity,  which  shows  how  much  he  had 
been  injured  by  being  a  Lord,)  that  "  they 
never  lived  in  high  life  nor  solitude .'"  (as  if 
the  millions  of  human  hearts  that  lay  between 
were  nothing!)  his  splenetic  inventions  against 
others,  and  his  extraordinary  forgetfulness  of 
his  own  offences.  The  passage  is  quoted 
where  he  speaks  of  my  "  not  very  tractable 
children."  Thank  God,  they  were  not  tractable 


THE    SECOND    EDITION.  XXiii 

to  him  !  I  have  something  very  awful  to  say 
on  that  point,  in  case  it  is  forced  from  me. 
Then  the  same  man,  who  talked  as  he  did 
about  his  wife,  over  and  over  again,  to  the 
whole  world,  asserts  his  incapability  of  vio- 
lating domestic  confidence;  and  the  servility 
of  the  poor  reviewer  is  carried  to  its  climax, 
in  the  assumption,  that  what  appeared  weak 
or  insincere  in  the  conversation  of  the  Noble 
Lord  (as  if  his  very  title  could  not  have 
spoilt  him  and  helped  to  make  it  so)  was 
only  so  much  profundity  beyond  the  capa- 
city of  his  hearers,  or  done  out  of  an  inten- 
tion of  making  his  guests  ridiculous,  and  so 
violating  the  very  hospitality  which  they  are 
accused  of  not  being  grateful  for  !  These 
are  the  airs  of  a  footman,  eager  to  degrade 
others,  out  of  an  instinct  of  his  own  condi- 
tion ;  and  raising  a  servile  laugh  in  honour  of 
his  master,  for  insulting  some  stranger  at 
his  door. 


XXIV  PREFACE    TO 

But  I  am  noticing  this  born  slave  more 
than  I  intended.  One  must  have  some  respect 
for  a  writer,  to  contend  with  him ;  and  I 
keep  what  I  have  to  say  on  these  matters, 
till  the  promised  work  appears  from  the  pen 
of  Mr.  Moore.  Meanwhile,  however,  in  order 
to  answer  a  question  put  to  me  in  the  Quar- 
terly Review,  I  will  suppose  that  I  heard  it 
elsewhere,  and  that  it  was  put  by  some  honest 
man. 

"  It  is  well  known,"  says  the  Review,  "  that 
Lord  Byron  took  leave  finally  of  Mr.  Leigh 
Hunt  by  letter.  The  letter  in  question  we 
never  saw,  but  we  have  conversed  with  those 
who  read  it ;  and  from  their  account  of  its  con- 
tents— they  describe  it  as  a  document  of  con- 
siderable length,  and  as  containing  a  full  narra- 
tive of  the  whole  circumstances  under  which 
Lord  Byron  and  Mr.  Hunt  met  and  parted, 
according  to  his  Lordship's  view  of  the  case — we 
confess  we  have  been  rather  surprised  to  find  it 


THE    SECOND    EDITION.  XXV 

altogether  omitted  in  Mr.  Leigh  Hunt's  quarto. 
Mr.  Hunt  prints  very  carefully  various  letters, 
in  which  Lord  Byron  treats  of  matters  nowise 
bearing  on  the  differences  which  occurred  be- 
tween these  two  distinguished  contemporaries : 
and  our  question  is,  was  it  from  humanity  to 
the  dead,  or  from  humanity  to  the  living,  that 
Mr.  Leigh  Hunt  judged  it  proper  to  omit  in 
this  work  the  apparently  rather  important  letter 
to  which  we  refer  ?  If  Mr.  Hunt  has  had  the 
misfortune  to  mislay  the  document,  and  sought 
in  vain  for  it  amongst  his  collections,  he  ought, 
we  rather  think,  to  have  stated  that  fact,  and 
stated  also,  in  so  far  as  his  memory  might  serve 
him,  his  impression  of  the  character  and  ten- 
dency of  this  valedictory  epistle.  But  in  case 
he  has  both  lost  the  document  and  totally  for- 
gotten what  it  contained,  we  are  happy  in  hav- 
ing this  opportunity  of  informing  him,  that  a 
copy  of  it  exists  in  very  safe  keeping." 

I  am  very  glad  to  hear  it.     Pray  let  it  be 


XXVI  PREFACE    TO 

brought  forward,  for  I  never  received  any  such 
valedictory  epistle.  Lord  Byron  certainly  did 
take  leave  of  me  by  letter.  It  was  an  epistle 
equally  friendly  and  short,  and  purported  that 
there  was  no  necessity  for  our  meeting  on  the 
occasion,  because  leave-taking  was  painful ;  and 
therefore  he  wished  me  well,  and  was  very  sin- 
cerely mine,  &c.  That  he  was  not  very  sincerely 
mine,  I  know  very  well ;  and  so  did  he.  But 
that  is  another  matter.  It  is  insinuated  (for  even 
the  habitual  falsehoods  of  the  reviewer  do  not 
enable  him  to  doubt  that  I  speak  the  truth,  and 
that  it  is  better  to  get  at  the  truth  out  of  my 
own  mouth,  than  charge  me  directly  with  want 
of  it)  that  I  have  kept  back  this  one  letter  writ- 
ten to  me  by  LordByron,  while  I  have  published 
various  others  nowise  bearing  on  the  differences " 
between  us.  I  have  said  in  the  book,  (see  vol.  i. 
p.  250,)  that  I  have  other  letters  in  my  pos- 
session, written  while  Lord  Byron  was  in  Italy, 
and  varying  in  degrees  of  cordiality,  according 


THE    SECOND    EDITION.  XXvii 

to  the  mood  he  happened  to  be  in  ;  and,  I  add, 
"  they  are  for  the  most  part  on  matters  of  dis- 
pute between  us,  and  are  all  written  in  an 
uneasy,  factitious  spirit,  as  different  from  the 
straight-forward  and  sincere-looking  style  of  the 
present,  as  his  aspect  in  old  times  varied  with 
his  later  one."  All  these  shall  come  forward, 
when  Mr.  Moore's  book  appears;  and  if  the 
person  who  holds  the  alleged  "  valedictory 
Epistle,"  so  long  and  so  hostile,  for  which  the 
other  valedictory  Epistle  was  substituted,  so 
short  and  so  friendly,  will  come  forward  with 
it,  and  is  a  credible  person,  (for  the  reviewer's 
word  would  go  for  nothing,)  I  shall  be  very 
happy  to  see  it  for  the  first  time,  and  to  give 
it  the  due  answer. 

What  the  reviewer  says  about  Mr.  Shelley's 
having  confessed  to  somebody,  "  with  tears," 
that  "  he  well  knew  he  had  been  all  in  the 
wrong,"  is  a  phenomenon,  which  must  come 
attested  by  all  the  magistrates  Autolycus  could 


XXV111  PREFACE    TO 

have  thought  of,  before  the  most  gullible  per- 
sons (out  of  the  pale  of  the  Quarterly)  will 
believe  it.  With  the  exception  of  Queen  Mab, 
I  never  remember  him  to  have  regretted  any 
thing  he  had  written  but  one  poem  with  an 
obscure  title,  the  existence  of  which  is  hardly 
known.  His  unfavourable  opinion  of  Queen 
Mab  he  expressed  publicly.  His  hopes  had 
diminished  when  I  last  saw  him  ;  but  when  I 
told  him  that  I  hoped  still,  and  that  I  thought 
hope  itself  a  part  of  success,  he  fully  assented 
to  the  utility  of  my  opinion ;  and  neither  in 
word  nor  deed  did  he  show  himself  a  jot  differ- 
ent from  what  he  had  ever  been,  except  in  his 
admiration  of  the  satirical  writings  of  Lord 
Byron.  Lord  Byron  himself  he  spoke  of  as  a 
man  the  most  disagreeable  to  have  any  thing  to 
do  with,  and  one  whose  connexion  he  would 
have  given  up  for  ever,  had  he  not  thought  it 
might  turn  to  my  advantage,  and  perhaps  to 
the  noble  Lord's  in  consequence.  As  to  the 


THE    SECOND    EDITION.  XXIX 

alleged  change  in  Mr.  Shelley,  Lord  Byron,  for 
one,  certainly  had  no  conception  of  any  such 
thing  :  at  least/if  he  has  said  so  in  his  letters, 
(the  assertions  in  which  our  credulous  review- 
er takes  all  for  "  matter  of  fact,")  it  was  totally 
in  opposition  to  the  character,  with  which  (in 
the  teeth  of  his  excessive  eulogies  of  the  de- 
ceased) he  threatened  to  brand  his  memory,  the 
moment  he  thought  he  had  found  reason  to 
quarrel  with  it. 

But  I  am  again  led  away  to  say  more  than 
is  necessary  at  present.  I  wait  for  Mr.  Moore. 
Mr.  Moore  ought  to  have  been  ashamed  of 
himself,  when  he  acted  in  that  underhand  man- 
ner against  his  old  acquaintance  and  his  own 
cause.  He  knew  what  a  situation  I  was  in; 
what  a  family  I  had;  what  struggles  I  had 
gone  through,  for  the  sake  of  freedom ;  and 
how  openly  I  had  ever  behaved  to  himself,  both 
in  what  I  ventured  to  praise  in  him  and  to 
differ  with  ;  and  yet  all  this  did  not  hinder  him 


XXX  PREFACE      TO 

from  practising  against  the  Liberal,  in  away 
the  most  disingenuous  towards  me,  and  upon 
grounds  the  most  ridiculous  in  him.  I  have 
since  expressed  my  resentment  in  a  strong  but 
not  ungenerous  manner ;  and  he  has  the  cre- 
dit, upon  the  very  ground  on  which  he  ought 
to  have  spared  me  originally,  and  which  collects 
in  one  burning  spot  of  thought  all  that  is 
painful  in  my  past  life,  and  bitter  at  present, 
of  aiming  a  blow  at  me  as  the  father  of  a 
family  (which  I  am),  and  a  fellow  turn-spit 
(which  I  never  was).  I  could  have  answered 
his  metaphors  with  interest,  had  the  bandying 
of  abuse  been  to  my  taste,  and  many  extreme 
cares  not  been  upon  me;  but  the  same  cir- 
cumstances in  my  position,  which,  connected 
with  all  that  I  have  done  and  hazarded  in 
this  world,  show  how  impossible  it  was  for 
me  to  speak  of  the  dead  in  any  rascally  spirit 
of  calculation,  will  not  allow  me  to  spare  any 
truth  whatsoever,  (the  other  sex  not  suffering 


THE    SECOND    EDITION.  XXXI 

by  it,)  which  will  hinder  me  from  being  crush- 
ed; and  should  his  book  render  it  necessary, 
I  will  most  assuredly  spare  neither  him,  nor 
his  publisher,  nor  any  one  person  or  thing, 
short  of  the  exception  just  noticed,  which 
will  serve  to  fill  up  all  that  has  been  omit- 
ted, and  to  show  of  what  sort  of  stuff  a  Lord 
and  his  advisers  can  be  made. 

Talk  of  speaking  ill  of  a  dead  Lord,  and 
an  imaginary  patron  !  How  have  I  not  been 
talked  of  and  misrepresented  in  these  matters 
between  Lord  Byron  and  myself,  while  I  did 
not  say  a  word  on  the  subject?  What  patron, 
or  dead  person,  lord  or  commoner,  or  king,  or 
what  excess  of  human  infirmity,  did  Lord 
Byron  spare,  when  the  mood  was  upon  him? 
How  many  persons  has  Mr.  Moore  himself  not 
attacked  in  his  day  ?  Many  that  never  offend- 
ed him,  and  some  whose  calamities  gave  them 
a  right  to  be  spared.  How  might  not  Lord 
Byron  (as  the  world  shall  see)  have  trampled 


XXX11  PREFACE    TO 

on  the  memory  of  my  friend  Mr.  Shelley,  if 
I  had  not  told  him  I  should  be  compelled  to 
make  him  repent  it? — Mr.  Shelley,  who  had 
been  really  his  benefactor,  if  people  knew  all. 
And  what  sort  of  living  people  did  this  lion 
of  the  perfumed  locks  (in  whose  favour  I 
have  been  gifted  with  so  many  new  and  in- 
genious appellations)  select  and  pitch  upon, 
on  whom  to  show  his  lion-like  nature  ?  On 
the  man  that  would  have  taken  the  thorn 
out  of  his  foot  ? — or  on  the  woman  who  had 
lain  in  his  bosom  ?  These  are  not  the  sort 
of  defences  to  be  found  for  him  ;  nor  can 
any  question  be  begged  in  his  favour  which 
does  not  carry  the  whole  of  humanity  along 
with  it.  Such  I  have  never  denied  him ;  and 
such  shall  not  be  denied  me. 

If  any  man,  after  reading  the  whole  of  my 
book,  be  capable  of  thinking  that  I  have  utter- 
ed a  single  thing  which  I  do  not  believe  to  be 
true,  or  that  in  what  I  have  uttered  I  was 


THE    SECOND    EDITION.  XXX111 

prompted  by  any  impulses  incapable  of  a  gene- 
rous construction,  he  is  speaking  out  of  his  own 
instinctive  meanness,  and  his  own  conscious 
want  of  veracity ;  and  I  return  him  any  epi- 
thets he  may  be  inclined  to  bestow  upon  me,  as 
equally  unfit  for  me  to  receive,  and  himself 
to  part  with. 

If  any  one  can  convince  me  of  an  error, — 
I  am  not  in  love  with  error,  but  truth — and 
will  gladly  rectify  it.  I  boast  of  being  a  Li- 
beral in  the  sense  laid  down  the  other  day 
by  the  Morning  Chronicle,  and  am  ready  on 
all  occasions  to  be  tried  by  it.* 

Finally,  if  any  one  asks  what  it  is  that 
supports  me  under  the  trying  circumstances, 

*  "  The  terms  liberal  and  illiberal,"  says  the  Chronicle, 
"  would,  in  the  present  day,  be  more  appropriate  than  those 
of  Whig  and  Tory.  Liberal  supposes  an  homage  to  know- 
ledge, a  disposition  to  submit  all  opinions  to  the  test  of  free 
enquiry,  and  to  be  always  open  to  conviction.  Whig  and 
Tory,  as  opposed  to  each  other,  as  we  have  observed,  is  a 
merely  nominal  distinction  ;  but  liberal  and  illiberal  are  as 
opposite  as  light  and  darkness." 

VOL.   I.  C 


XXXIV  PREFACE    TO 

in  which  I  have  to  work  out  (as  becomes 
me)  the  remainder  of  my  days,  I  answer, 
that  it  is  my  belief  in  the  natural  goodness 
and  capability  of  mankind,  and  the  testimo- 
nies borne  to  my  endeavours  in  consequence 
by  the  love  of  those  who  know  me  most 
intimately,  and  the  esteem  and  good  word  of 
those  who  publicly  agree  with  me.  I  cannot 
express  the  sense  I  have  (at  least  I  am  not 
well  enough  at  present  to  dare  to  let  my 
heart  attempt  it)  of  the  eloquent  and  cordial 
articles  that  have  appeared  in  defence  of  this 
work  in  various  journals,  both  in  town  and 
country.  What  renders  them  especially  wel- 
come (and  I  may  mention  in  particular,  though 
not  all  on  that  account,  those  in  the  Sun- 
day Monitor,  the  Hereford  Independent,  and 
the  Athenaeum, — the  last. in  a  friendly  quar- 
ter, but  evidently  by  one  who  thinks  for 
himself,)  is,  that  the  authors  of  some  of 
them  state  themselves  to  have  grown  up  in 


THE    SECOND    EDITION.  XXXV 

intimacy  with  my  writings,  and  to  have  had 
their  opinions  materially  affected  by  them; 
so  that  every  noble  aspiration  they  utter,  and 
every  graceful  sentence  in  which  it  is  clothed, 
seem  to  come  home  to  me  like  golden  sheaves 
of  the  harvest  that  I  have  contributed  to 
sow.  This,  indeed,  makes  me  feel  prouder 
than  self-knowledge  will  allow  me  to  feel 
with  any  thing  more  my  own. 

The  writer  in  the  Athenaeum,  (whose  re- 
marks I  had  not  entirely  seen  till  the  rest 
of  this  preface  had  been  written,)  has  offered 
me  advice  on  one  or  two  points,  which  I 
shall  carefully  consider,  and  upon  which  I 
can  very  well  imagine  I  stand  in  need  of  it. 
But  he  is  mistaken  in  thinking  that  I  quar- 
relled with  Mr.  Moore,  merely  for  saying 
that  the  Liberal  had  a  "taint"  in  it.  It 
was  a  thing  bad  enough  to  say,  and  foolish ; 
but  Mr.  Moore  might  have  accused  the  Li- 
beral of  having  a  thousand  taints  in  it,  had 


XXXVI  PREFACE    TO 


he  discussed  that  matter  openly  with  us.  It 
was  the  secret  way  in  which  he  did  it,  and 
in  which  he  spoke  against  us,  that  consti- 
tuted the  offence.  I  verily  believe,  that  it 
is  not  in  the  power  of  sincerity  and  open- 
ness to  offend  me,  beyond  an  almost  imme- 
diate forgiveness.  I  am  sure,  that  sincerity 
and  good-nature,  united,  could  not  possibly 
do  so,  let  the  truths  they  told  me  make  me 
never  so  melancholy.  I  hardly  dare  tell  the 
reader,  how  little  even  the  grossest  abuse 
affects  me,  in  the  angry  sense  of  the  word, 
when  I  think  the  writer  a  sincere  person. 
But  if  there  is  any  thing  in  the  world  that 
I  feel  to  be  provoking,  it  is  want  of  fairness 
and  open  dealing.  It  is  vexatious  enough 
even  in  such  shallow  fellows  as  this  knave 
of  the  Quarterly ;  but  to  meet  with  it  among 
friends,  and  friends  of  humanity  at  large  (for 
such  I  take  all  men  of  genius  to  be  by  na- 


THE    SECOND    EDITION.  XXXVU 

ture),  and  to  see  them  consenting  to  carry 
on  this  tragic  farce  of  insincerity,  which  is 
the  very  thing  that  cuts  up  their  own 
comfort  with  mankind,  and  makes  them 
fancy  them  not  to  be  bettered, — this, — if 
one  did  not  know  how  weak  a  thing  it 
was,  and  how  contrary  to  the  part  which 
the  unwearied  Spirit  of  the  Universe  is  for 
ever  suggesting  to  the  young  and  enthu- 
siastic hearts  with  which  it  seems  to  begin 
its  endeavours  over  again — might  be  thought 
sufficient  to  make  one  lie  down  at  once,  and 
die  of  this  bad  jest  of  the  universe.  Let 
me  not  be  supposed  to  believe  in  any  such 
alternative.  The  sight  of  one  open  face, — I 
could  almost  say,  of  one  green  and  quiet 
field, — would  be  enough  to  make  me  hope 
to  the  last ;  and  I  have  hope  for  the  next 
world,  should  it  fail  me  in  this.  But  the 
moment  is  a  bitter  one,  which  discovers  to 
VOL.  i.  c  3 


XXXV111  PREFACE    TO 

us,  that  those  of  whom  we  have  entertained 
the  most  pleasant  ideas,  can  fail  us  in  the 
most  unpleasant  manner.  The  very  light  of 
day,  even  for  ordinary  purposes,  seems  taken 
from  before  one's  eyes,  if  we  cannot  rely 
upon  those  about  us,  either  for  friendship 
or  enmity,  nor  know  who  it  is  that  is  put- 
ting obstacles  in  our  path. 

The  truth  is,  Mr.  Moore  could  not  state 
his  objections  to  the  Liberal  fairly,  without 
bringing  his  own  principles  into  question  : — 
he  did  not  choose  to  do  that — and  therefore 
he  should  have  made  no  objections  at  all. 
If  he  had  any  thing  else  to  say,  for  Lord 
Byron  or  himself,  why  did  he  not  speak 
out? 

Had  Mr.  Moore  been  sincere,  he  would 
have  saved  me  the  trouble  of  the  present 
work ;  or,  at  least,  of  a  great  deal  which 
gives  me  any  pain  in  it.  Had  Lord  Byron 


THE    SECOND  EDITION.  XXXIX 

been  sincere,  he  would  have  saved  a  great 
many  people,  and  himself,  a  world  of  wretch- 
edness. 

Let  the  reader  consider  but  these  two  facts, 
and  make  his  own  deductions. 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


VOL.  I. 

PORTRAIT    OF    LORD    BYRON         .  TO    FACE    THE    TITLE. 

FAC-SIMILES  OF  THE  HANDWRITING  OF  LORD   BYRON, 

MR.  SHELLEY,  AND   MR.  KEATS,  TO  FACE  PAGE   1 

PORTRAIT  OF  THE  COUNTESS  GUICCIOLI 

407 

PORTRAIT  OF  MR.   KEATS      .... 

VOL.  II. 

PORTRAIT  OF   MR.   LEIGH  HUNT      .         TO    FACE    THE    TITLE. 

«>Q 
PORTRAIT  OF  MR.  CHARLES  LAMB      . 


$ 

^  M 

C      - 

s  § 


- 


H 

EM 


H 


8 


U 


' 


LORD   BYRON 


AND    SOME    OF 


HIS   CONTEMPORARIES, 


THE  first  time  I  saw  Lord  Byron,  he  was 
rehearsing  the  part  of  Leander,  under  the 
auspices  of  Mr.  Jackson  the  prize-fighter.  It 
was  in  the  river  Thames,  before  he  went  to 
Greece.  I  had  been  bathing,  and  was  stand- 
ing on  the  floating  machine  adjusting  my 
clothes,  when  I  noticed  a  respectable-looking 
manly  person,  who  was  eyeing  something  at  a 
distance.  This  was  Mr.  Jackson  waiting  for 
his  pupil.  The  latter  was  swimming  with 
somebody  for  a  wager.  I  forget  what  his 
tutor  said  of  him;  but  he  spoke  in  terms  of 

VOL.  i.  B 


2  LORD    BYRON. 

praise.  I  saw  nothing  in  Lord  Byron  at  that 
time,  but  a  young  man  who,  like  myself,  had 
written  a  bad  volume  of  poems;  and  though 
I  had  a  sympathy  with  him  on  this  account, 
and  more  respect  for  his  rank  than  I  was  wil- 
ling to  suppose,  my  sympathy  was  not  an 
agreeable  one;  so,  contenting  myself  with  see- 
ing his  Lordship's  head  bob  up  and  down  in 
the  water,  like  a  buoy,  I  came  away. 

Lord  Byron  was  afterwards  pleased  to  re- 
gret, that  I  had  not  stayed.  He  told  me,  that 
the  sight  of  my  volume  at  Harrow  had  been 
one  of  his  incentives  to  write  verses,  and  that 
he  had  had  the  same  passion  for  friendship  that 
I  had  displayed  in  it.  To  my  astonishment, 
he  quoted  some  of  the  lines,  and  would  not 
hear  me  speak  ill  of  them.  This  was  when  I 
was  in  prison,  where  I  first  became  personally 
acquainted  with  his  Lordship.  His  harbinger 
was  Moore.  Moore  told  me,  that,  besides  lik- 
ing my  politics,  he  liked  "  The  Feast  of  the 
Poets,"  and  would  be  glad  to  make  my  ac- 
quaintance. I  said  I  felt  myself  highly  flat- 
tered, and  should  be  proud  to  entertain  his 
Lordship  as  well  as  a  poor  patriot  could.  He 


LORD    BYRON. 

was  accordingly  invited  to  dinner.  His  friend 
only  stipulated,  that  there  should  be  "plenty 
of  fish  and  vegetables  for  the  noble  bard," 
his  Lordship  at  that  time  being  Brahminical 
in  his  eating.  He  came,  and  we  passed  a  very 
pleasant  afternoon,  talking  of  books,  and  school, 
and  the  Reverend  Mr.  Bowles ;  of  the  pastoral 
innocence  of  whose  conversation  some  anec- 
dotes were  related,  that  would  have  much  edi- 
fied the  spirit  of  Pope,  had  it  been  in  the  room. 
I  saw  nothing  at  first  but  single-hearted  and 
agreeable  qualities  in  Lord  Byron.  My  wife, 
with  the  quicker  eyes  of  a  woman,  was  inclined 
to  doubt  them.  Visiting  me  one  day,  when  I 
had  a  friend  with  me,  he  seemed  uneasy,  and 
asked  without  ceremony,  when  he  should  find 
me  alone.  My  friend,  who  was  a  man  of  taste 
and  spirit,  and  the  last  in  the  world  to  intrude 
his  acquaintance,  was  not  bound  to  go  away 
because  another  person  had  come  in ;  and 
besides,  he  naturally  felt  anxious  to  look  at  so 
interesting  a  visitor;  which  was  paying  the 
latter  a  compliment.  But  his  Lordship's  will 
was  disturbed,  and  he  vented  his  spleen  accord- 
ingly. I  took  it  at  the  time  for  a  piece  of  sim- 

B  2 


4  LORD    BYRON. 

plicity,  blinded  perhaps  by  the  flattery  insinua- 
ted towards  myself;  but  my  wife  was  right. 
Lord  Byron's  nature,  from  the  first,  contained 
that  mixture  of  disagreeable  with  pleasanter 
qualities,  which  I  had  afterwards  but  too  much 
occasion  to  recognize.  He  subsequently  called 
on  me  in  the  prison  several  times,  and  used  to 
bring  books  for  my  Story  of  Rimini,  which  I 
was  then  writing.  He  would  not  let  the  foot- 
man bring  them  in.  He  would  enter  with  a 
couple  of  quartos  under  his  arm  ;  and  give  you 
to  understand,  that  he  was  prouder  of  being 
a  friend  and  a  man  of  letters,  than  a  lord.  It 
was  thus  that  by  flattering  one's  vanity,  he 
persuaded  us  of  his  own  freedom  from  it ;  for 
he  could  see  very  well,  that  I  had  more  value 
for  lords  than  I  supposed. 

In  the  correspondence  at  the  end  of  the  pre- 
sent memoir,  the  reader  will  find  some  letters 
addressed  to  me  at  this  period  by  Lord  Byron. 
He  was  a  warm  politician,  and  thought  himself 
earnest  in  the  cause  of  liberty.  His  failure  in 
the  House  of  Lords  is  well  known.  He  was 
very  candid  about  it ;  said  he  was  much  fright- 
ened, and  should  never  be  able  to  do  any  thing 


LORD    BYRON.  5 

that  way.     Lords  of  all  parties  came  about  him, 
and  consoled  him  ;    he  particularly  mentioned 
Lord    Sidmouth,   as  being  unaffectedly  kind. 
When  I  left  prison,  I  was  too  ill  to  return  his 
visits.     He  pressed  me  very  much  to  go  to  the 
theatre  with  him ;  but  illness,  and  the  dread 
of  committing  my  critical  independence,  alike 
prevented   me.      His    Lordship  was  one  of  a 
management  that  governed  Drury-lane  Theatre 
at  that  time,  and  that  made  a  sad  business  of 
their  direction,  as  amateur-managers  have  al- 
ways done.     He  got  nothing  by  it  but  petty 
vexations,  and  a  good  deal  of  scandal. 

I  was  then  living  at  Paddington.  I  had  a 
study  looking  over  the  fields  towards  West- 
bourne  Green :  which  I  mention,  because,  be- 
sides the  pleasure  I  took  in  it  after  my  prison, 
and  the  gratitude  I  owe  to  a  fair  cousin,  who 
saved  me  from  being  burnt  there  one  fine  morn- 
ing, I  received  visits  in  it  from  two  persons  of 
a  remarkable  discrepancy  of  character — Lord 
Byron  and  Mr.  Wordsworth.  Of  Mr.  Words- 
worth I  will  speak  hereafter.  Lord  Byron,  I 
thought,  took  a  pleasure  in  my  room,  as  con- 
trasted with  the  splendour  of  his  great  house. 


6  LORD    BYRON. 

He  had  too  much  reason  to  do  so.  His  do- 
mestic troubles  were  just  about  to  become  pub- 
lic. His  appearance  at  that  time  was  the  finest 
I  ever  saw  it,  a  great  deal  finer  than  it  was 
afterwards,  when  he  was  abroad.  He  was  fat- 
ter than  before  his  marriage,  but  only  just 
enough  so  to  complete  the  manliness  of  his 
person ;  and  the  turn  of  his  head  and  counte- 
nance had  a  spirit  and  elevation  in  it,  which 
though  not  unmixed  with  disquiet,  gave  him 
altogether  a  nobler  look,  than  I  ever  knew  him 
to  have,  before  or  since.  His  dress,  which  was 
black,  with  white  trowsers,  and  which  he  wore 
buttoned  close  over  the  body,  completed  the 
succinctness  and  gentlemanliness  of  his  appear- 
ance. I  remember  one  day,  as  he  stood  look- 
ing out  of  the  window,  he  resembled  in  a  lively 
manner  the  portrait  of  him  by  Phillips,  by  far 
the  best  that  has  appeared ;  I  mean  the  best  of 
him  at  his  best  time  of  life,  and  the  most  like 
him  in  features  as  well  as  expression.  He  sat 
one  morning  so  long,  that  Lady  Byron  sent  up 
twice  to  let  him  know  she  was  waiting.  Her 
Ladyship  used  to  go  on  in  the  carriage  to  Hen- 
derson's Nursery  Ground,  to  get  flowers.  I 


LORD    BYRON.  7 

had  not  the  honour  of  knowing  her,  nor  ever 
saw  her  but  once,  when  I  caught  a  glimpse  of 
her  at  the  door.  I  thought  she  had  a  pretty 
earnest  look,  with  her  "  pippin"  face ;  an  epi- 
thet by  which  she  playfully  designated  herself. 

The  first  visit  I  paid  Lord  Byron  was  just 
after  their  separation.  The  public,  who  took 
part  with  the  lady,  as  they  ought  to  do,  (wo- 
men in  their  relations  with  the  other  sex  being 
under  the  most  unhandsome  disadvantages) 
had,  nevertheless,  no  idea  of  the  troubles  which 
her  husband  was  suffering  at  that  time.  He 
was  very  ill,  his  face  jaundiced  with  bile ;  the 
renouncement  of  his  society  by  Lady  Byron 
had  disconcerted  him  extremely,  and  was,  I 
believe,  utterly  unlocked  for ;  then  the  journals 
and  their  attacks  upon  him,  were  felt  severely ; 
and  to  crown  all,  he  had  an  execution  in  his 
house.  I  was  struck  with  the  real  trouble  he 
manifested,  compared  with  what  the  public 
thought  of  it.  The  adherence  of  his  old  friends 
was  also  touching.  I  saw  Mr.  Hobhouse  and 
Mr.  Scrope  Davies  (college  friends  of  his) 
almost  every  time  I  called.  Mr.  Rogers  was  re- 
gular in  his  daily  visits  ;  and  Lord  Holland,  he 


8  LORD    BYRON. 

said,  was  very  kind  to  him.  Finally,  he  took 
the  blame  of  the  quarrel  to  himself;  and  he 
enlisted  my  self-love  so  far  on  the  side  of  Lady 
Byron,  as  to  tell  me  that  she  liked  my  poem, 
and  had  compared  his  temper  to  that  of  Gio- 
vanni, my  heroine's  consort.  In  all  this  I  be- 
held only  a  generous  nature,  subject  perhaps  to 
ebullitions  of  ill-temper,  but  candid,  sensitive, 
extremely  to  be  pitied,  and,,  if  a  woman  knew 
how,  or  was  permitted  by  others  to  love  him, 
extremely  to  be  loved. 

What  made  me  come  the  more  warmly  to 
this  conclusion,  was  a  letter  which  he  showed 
me,  written  by  Lady  Byron  after  her  depar- 
ture from  the  house,  and  when  she  was  on  her 
way  to  the  relations,  who  persuaded  her  not  to 
return.  It  was  signed  with  the  epithet  above- 
mentioned;  and  was  written  in  a  spirit  of 
good-humour,  and  even  fondness,  which  though 
containing  nothing  but  what  a  wife  ought  to 
write,  and  is  the  better  for  writing,  was,  I 
thought,  almost  too  good  to  show.  But  the 
case  was  extreme  ;  and  the  compliment  to  me, 
in  showing  it,  appeared  the  greater.  I  was 
not  aware  at  that  time,  that  with  a  singular 


LORD    BYRON.  9 

incontinence,  towards  which  it  was  lucky  for 
a  great  many  people  that  his  friends  were  as 
singularly  considerate,  his  Lordship  was  in  the 
habit  of  making  a  confidant  of  every  body  he 
came  nigh. 

I  will  now  tell  the  reader,  very  candidly, 
what  I  think  of  the  whole  of  that  matter. 
Every  body  knows,  in  the  present  beautiful 
state  of  the  relations  between  the  sexes,  what 
is  meant  by  marriages  of  convenience.  They 
generally  turn  out  to  be  as  inconvenient,  as 
persons,  who  are  said  to  have  arrived  at  years 
of  discretion,  are  apt  to  be  indiscreet.  Lord 
Byron's  was  a  marriage  of  convenience, — cer- 
tainly at  least  on  his  own  part.  The  lady,  I 
have  no  doubt,  would  never  have  heard  of  it 
under  that  title.  He  married  for  money,  but 
of  course  he  wooed  with  his  genius;  and  the 
lady  persuaded  herself  that  she  liked  him, 
partly  because  he  had  a  genius,  and  partly 
because  it  is  natural  to  love  those  who  take 
pains  to  please  us.  Furthermore,  the  poet  was 
piqued  to  obtain  his  mistress,  because  she  had 
a  reputation  for  being  delicate  in  such  matters; 
and  the  lady  was  piqued  to  become  his  wife, 


10  LORD    BYRON. 

not  because  she  did  not  know  the  gentleman 
previously  to  marriage,   but  because  she  did, 
and   hoped  that  her  love,   and  her  sincerity, 
and  her  cleverness,  would  enable  her  to  reform 
him.     The    experiment    was   dangerous,    and 
did  not  succeed.     Another  couple  might  have 
sat  still,  and  sacrificed   their   comfort  to  the 
vanity  of  appearing  comfortable.     Lord  Byron 
had  too  much  self-will  for  this,  and  his  lady 
too  much  sincerity, — perhaps  too  much  alarm 
and    resentment.      The  excess   of  his  moods, 
which,  out  of  the  spleen,  and  even  self-reproach 
of  the  moment,   he  indulged  in  perhaps  be- 
yond what  he  really  felt,  were  so  terrifying  to 
a  young  and  mortified   woman,  that   she  be- 
gan  to  doubt  whether  he   was    in  possession 
of   his   senses.      She    took   measures,    which 
exceedingly    mortified   him,   for  solving   this 
doubt;     and    though     they    were    on    good 
terms  when   she  left  an  uneasy  house  to  vi- 
sit her  friends  in  the  country,  and  Lady  By- 
ron  might,  I  have  no  doubt,  have  been  per- 
suaded by  him  to  return,  had  there  been  as 
much  love,   or   even   address,  on  his  side,   as 
there  was  a  wish  to  believe  in  his  merit  on  her's, 


LORD    BYRON.  11 

it  is  no  wonder  that  others,  whom  she  had 
known  and  loved  so  much  longer,  and  who 
felt  no  interest  in  being  blind  to  his  defects, 
should  persuade  her  to  stay  away.  The  "Fare- 
well"1 that  he  wrote,  and  that  set  so  many  ten- 
der-hearted white  handkerchiefs  in  motion,  only 
resulted  from  his  poetical  power  of  assuming  an 
imaginary  position,  and  taking  pity  on  himself 
in  the  shape  of  another  man.  He  had  no  love 
for  the  object  of  it,  or  he  would  never  have 
written  upon  her  in  so  different  a  style  after- 
wards. Indeed,  I  do  not  believe  that  he  ever 
had  the  good-fortune  of  knowing  what  real 
love  is, — meaning  by  love  the  desire  that  is 
ennobled  by  sentiment,  and  that  seeks  the  good 
and  exaltation  of  the  person  beloved.  He 
could  write  a  passage  now  and  then,  which 
showed  that  he  was  not  incapable  of  it;  but 
the  passion  on  which  he  delights  to  dwell,  is 
either  that  of  boys  and  girls,  extremely  prone 
and  boarding-school ;  or  of  heroines,  who  take 
a  delight  in  sacrificing  themselves  to  wilful 
gentlemen. 

I  thought  differently  on  this  business  at  the 
time,  though  rather  to  the  exculpation  of  the 


12  LOUD    BYJION. 

gentleman,  than  blame  of  the  lady.     My  pre- 
sent conclusions  were  confirmed  during  my  visit 
to  Italy.     There  is  no  doubt,  that  Lord  Byron 
felt  the  scandal  of  the  separation  severely.     It 
is   likely,  also,  that  he  began  to  long  for  his 
wife's  adherence  the  more,  when  he  saw  that 
she  would  not  return.     Perhaps  he  liked  her 
the   better.       At   all   events,   she   piqued   his 
will,   which  was   his  tender  side ;  the  circles 
were  loud  in  his  condemnation ;  and  he  was 
in  perplexity  about  his  child  ;  in  whom,  as  his 
only  representative,  and  the  descendant  of  two 
ancient   families,    he   took  great   pride  to  the 
last.     But  his  feelings,  whatever  they  were,  did 
not  hinder  him  from  wreaking  his  resentment 
in  a  manner  which  every  one  of  his  friends  la- 
mented ;  nor  from  availing  himself,  at  a  future 
day,  of  those  rights  of  matrimonial  property, 
which  the  gallant  and  chivalrous  justice  of  the 
stronger  sex  has  decreed  to  itself,  as  a  consola- 
tion for  not  being  able  to  make  the  lady  com- 
fortable. 

From  the  time  of  my  taking  leave  of  Lord 
Byron  in  England,  to  the  moment  of  our  meet- 
ing in  Italy,  I  scarcely  heard  of  him,  and  never 


LORD    BYRON.  13 

from  him.  He  had  become  not  very  fond  of 
his  reforming  acquaintances.  Shelley  he  knew, 
and  lived  a  good  deal  with,  in  Switzerland ; 
and  he  was  intimate  again  with  him  in  Italy  ; 
yet,  in  the  list  of  the  only  persons  whom,  on 
some  occasion  or  other,  he  mentioned  publicly 
as  having  seen  in  that  country,  Mr.  Shelley's 
name  was  omitted.  I  was  therefore  surprised, 
when  1  received  the  letter  from  my  friend, 
which  the  reader  will  find  in  the  Correspon- 
dence at  the  end  of  this  memoir,  and  which 
contained  a  proposal  from  my  former  acquaint- 
ance, inviting  me  to  go  over,  and  set  up  a  work 
with  him.  Mr.  Shelley  himself  had  repeatedly 
invited  me  abroad ;  and  I  had  as  repeatedly  de- 
clined going,  for  the  reason  stated  in  my  ac- 
count of  him.  That  reason  was  done  away  by 
the  nature  of  this  new  proposal.  I  was  ih1 ;  it 
was  thought  by  many  I  could  not  live;  my 
wife  was  very  ill  too ;  my  family  was  nume- 
rous ;  and  it  was  agreed  by  my  partner  in  the 
Examiner,  that  while  a  struggle  was  made  in 
England  to  reanimate  that  paper,  injured  by 
the  peace,  and  by  a  variety  of  other  circum- 
stances, a  simultaneous  endeavour  should  be 


LORD    BYltON. 

made  in  Italy  to  secure  new  aid  to  our  dimi- 
nished fortunes,  and  new  friends  to  the  cause 
of  liberty.  My  family,  therefore,  packed  up 
their  books,  and  prepared  to  go  by  sea. 

Of  my  voyage  I  will  give  an  account  here- 
after.    My   business    at   present   is    to    speak 
of  Lord  Byron,  to   whose  Italian  residence  I 
therefore  hasten.     In  the  harbour  of  Leghorn 
I   found   Mr.  Trelawney.     He   was   standing 
with  his  knight-errant  aspect,  dark,  handsome, 
and  mustachio'd,   in   Lord   Byron's   boat,  the 
Bolivar,  of  which  he  had  taken  charge  for  his 
Lordship.     In  a  day  or  two  I  went  to  see  the 
noble  Bard,  who  was  in  what  the  Italians  call 
mllegg'iatura  at   Monte-Nero :    that  is  to  say, 
enjoying  a   country-house   for  the   season.     I 
there  met   with   a   singular  adventure,  which 
seemed  to  make  me  free  of  Italy  and  stilettos, 
before  I  had  well  set  foot  in  the  country.     The 
day  was  very  hot ;    the  road   to  Monte-Nero 
was   very  hot,  through   dusty   suburbs ;    and 
when  I  got  there,  I  found  the  hottest-looking 
house  I  ever  saw.     Not  content  with  having 
a  red  wash  over  it,  the  red  was  the  most  un- 
seasonable of  all  reds,  a  salmon  colour.     Think 


LORD   BYRON.  15 

of  this,  flaring  over  the  country  in  a  hot  Italian 
sun! 

But  the  greatest  of  all  the  heats  was  within. 
Upon  seeing  Lord  Byron,  I  hardly  knew  him, 
he  was  grown  so  fat ;  and  he  was  longer  in 
recognizing  me,  I  had  grown  so  thin.  He  was 
dressed  in  a  loose  nankin  jacket  and  white 
trowsers,  his  neckloth  open,  and  his  hair  in 
thin  ringlets  about  his  throat :  altogether  pre- 
senting a  very  different  aspect  from  the  com- 
pact, energetic,  and  curly-headed  person,  whom 
I  had  known  in  England. 

He  took  me  into  an  inner-room,  and  intro- 
duced me  to  a  young  lady  in  a  state  of  great 
agitation.  Her  face  was  flushed,  her  eyes  lit 
up,  and  her  hair  (which  she  wore  in  that  fa- 
shion) looked  as  if  it  streamed  in  disorder. 
This  was  the  daughter  of  Count  Gamba,  wife 
of  the  Cavaliere  Guiccioli,  since  known  as 
Madame,  or  the  Countess,  Guiccioli, — all  the 
children  of  persons  of  that  rank  in  Italy  bear- 
ing the  title  of  their  parents.  The  Conte  Pietro, 
her  brother,  came  in  presently,  also  in  a  state 
of  agitation,  and  having  his  arm  in  a  sling.  I 
then  learned,  that  a  quarrel  having  taken  place 


16  LORD    BYRON. 

among  the  servants,  the  young  Count  had  in- 
terfered, and  been  stabbed.  He  was  very 
angry  ;  Madame  Guiccioli  was  more  so,  and 
would  not  hear  of  the  charitable  comments  of 
Lord  Byron,  who  was  for  making  light  of  the 
matter.  Indeed  there  was  a  look  in  the  bu- 
siness a  little  formidable  ;  for,  though  the  stab 
was  not  much,  the  infuctor  of  it  threatened 
more,  and  was  at  that  minute  keeping  watch 
under  the  portico  with  the  avowed  intention 
of  assaulting  the  first  person  that  issued  forth. 
I  looked  out  of  window,  and  met  his  eye 
glaring  upwards  like  a  tiger.  The  fellow  had 
a  red  cap  on  like  a  sans-culotte,  and  a  most 
sinister  aspect,  dreary  and  meagre,  a  proper 
caitiff.  Thus,  it  appeared,  the  house  was  in  a 
state  of  blockade ;  the  nobility  and  gentry  of 
the  interior  all  kept  in  a  state  of  impossibility 
by  a  rascally  footman. 

How  long  things  had  continued  in  this  state 
1  cannot  say ;  but  the  hour  was  come  when 
Lord  Byron  and  his  friends  took  their  evening 
ride,  and  the  thing  was  to  be  put  an  end  to 
somehow.  Fletcher,  the  valet,  had  been  de- 
spatched for  the  police,  and  was  not  returned. 


LORD    BYRON.  17 

It  was  wondered  among  other  things,  how  I 
had  been  suffered  to  enter  the  house  with  impu- 
nity. Somebody  conceived,  that  the  man  might 
have  taken  me  for  one  of  the  constituted  au- 
thorities ;  a  compliment  which  few  Englishmen 
would  be  anxious  to  deserve,  and  which  I  must 
disclaim  any  pretensions  to.  At  length  we 
set  out,  Madame  Guiccioli  earnestly  intreating 
"  Bairon"  to  keep  back,  and  all  of  us  uniting 
to  keep  in  advance  of  Conte  Pietro,  who  was 
exasperated.  It  was  a  curious  moment  for  a 
stranger  from  England.  I  fancied  myself  pitch- 
ed into  one  of  the  scenes  in  the  "  Mysteries*/ 
of  Udolpho,"  with  Montoni  and  his  tumul- 
tuous companions.  Every  thing  was  new, 
foreign,  and  violent.  There  was  the  lady, 
flushed  and  dishevelled,  exclaiming  against 
the  "  scelerato ;"  the  young  Count,  wounded 
and  threatening ;  the  assassin,  waiting  for  us 
with  his  knife;  and  last,  not  least,  in  the 
novelty,  my  English  friend,  metamorphosed, 
round-looking,  and  jacketed,  trying  to  damp 
all  this  fire  with  his  cool  tones,  and  an  air  of 
voluptuous  indolence.  He  had  now,  however, 
put  on  his  loose  riding-coat  of  mazarin  blue, 
VOL.  i.  c 


18  LORD    BYRON. 

and  his  velvet  cap,  looking  more  lordly  than 
before,  but  hardly  less  foreign.  It  was  an 
awkward  moment  for  him,  not  knowing  what 
might  happen ;  but  he  put  a  good  face  on  the 
matter ;  and  as  to  myself,  I  was  so  occupied  with 
the  novelty  of  the  scene,  that  I  had  not  time 
to  be  frightened.  Forth  we  issue  at  the  door, 
all  squeezing  to  have  the  honour  of  being 
the  boldest,  when  a  termination  is  put  to  the 
tragedy  by  the  vagabond's  throwing  himself 
on  a  bench,  extending  his  arms,  and  bursting 
into  tears.  His  cap  was  half  over  his  eyes  ; 
his  face  gaunt,  ugly,  and  un  shaved ;  his  ap- 
pearance altogether  more  squalid  and  miserable 
than  an  Englishman  would  conceive  it  possible 
to  find  in  such  an  establishment.  This  blessed 
figure  reclined  weeping  and  wailing,  and  ask- 
ing pardon  for  his  offence ;  and  to  crown  all, 
he  requested  Lord  Byron  to  kiss  him. 

The  noble  Lord  conceived  this  excess  of 
charity  superfluous.  He  pardoned  him,  but 
said  he  must  not  think  of  remaining  in  his 
service ;  and  the  man  continued  weeping,  and 
kissing  his  hand.  I  was  then  amused  with 
seeing  the  footing  on  which  the  gentry  and 


LORD    BYRON.  19 

their  servants  stand  with  each  other  in  Italy, 
and  the  good-nature  with  which  the  fiercest 
exhibitions  of  anger  can  be  followed  up. 
Conte  Pietro,  a  generous  good-humoured  fel- 
low, accepted  the  man's  hand,  and  shook  it 
with  great  good- will;  and  Madame  Guiccioli, 
though  unable  to  subside  so  quickly  from  her 
state  of  indignant  exaltation,  looked  in  re- 
lenting sort,  as  if  the  pitying  state  of  excite- 
ment would  be  just  as  good  as  the  other.  In 
fine,  she  concluded  by  according  the  man  her 
grace  also,  seeing  my  Lord  had  forgiven  him. 
The  man  was  all  penitence  and  wailing,  but 
he  was  obliged  to  quit.  The  police  would 
have  forced  him,  if  he  had  not  been  dismissed. 
He  left  the  country,  and  called  in  his  way  on 
Mr.  SheUey,  who  was  shocked  at  his  appearance, 
and  gave  him  some  money  out  of  his  very  dis- 
gust; for  he  thought  nobody  would  help  such 
a  fellow  if  he  did  not. 

The  unpleasant  part  of  the  business  did  not 
end  here.  It  was,  remotely,  one  of  the  causes 
of  Lord  Byron's  leaving  Italy ;  for  it  increased 
the  awkwardness  of  his  position  with  the  Tus- 
can Government,  and  gave  a  farther  unsteadi- 

c  2 


20  LORD    BYRON. 

ness  to  his  restless  temper.  His  friends,  the 
Gambas,  who  all  lived  with  him,  father  as  well 
as  children,  were  already  only  upon  sufferance 
in  Tuscany.  They  had  been  expelled  their 
native  country,  Romagna,  for  practices  with 
the  Carbonari ;  and  Lord  Byron,  who  identified 
himself  with  their  fortunes,  became  a  party  to 
their  wanderings,  and  to  the  footing  on  which 
they  stood  wherever  they  were  permitted  to 
abide.  The  Grand-duke's  government  had 
given  him  to  understand,  that  they  were  at 
liberty  to  reside  in  Tuscany,  provided  as  little 
was  heard  of  them  as  possible.  The  fracas 
that  happened  in  the  street  of  Pisa,  a  little 
before  I  came,  had  given  a  shock  to  the  tran- 
quillity of  this  good  understanding,  Count 
Gamba's  retinue  having  been  the  most  violent 
persons  concerned  in  it :  and  now,  another  of 
his  men  having  caused  a  second  disturbance, 
the  distrust  was  completed.  Lord  Byron's  re- 
sidence in  Tuscany  was  made  uneasy  to  him. 
It  was  desired  that  he  should  separate  himself 
from  the  Gambas  :  and  though  I  believe,  that 
even  at  that  time,  he  would  have  been  glad 
to  do  so ;  and  though,  on  the  other  hand,  it  was 


LORD    BYRON.  21 

understood  that  a  little  courtesy  on  his  part 
towards  the  Grand-duke  and  Duchess,  the 
latter  of  whom  was  said  to  be  particularly 
desirous  of  seeing  him  at  Court,  would  have 
given  him  a  carte-blanche  for  all  parties,  yet 
his  pride  in  that  instance,  and  his  usual  ten- 
dency to  be  led  by  those  about  him  in  the 
other,  prevented  his  taking  either  of  these 
steps;  and  he  returned  to  his  house  at  Pisa, 
only  to  reside  there  two  or  three  months 
longer,  when  he  departed  for  Genoa. 

Having  settled  our  friend,  the  lachrymose 
ruffian,  we  took  our  drive  in  the  barouche,  in 
the  course  of  which  we  met  the  police-officer, 
and  my  old  acquaintance  Fletcher,  with  his 
good-humoured,  lack-a-daisaical  face.  Fletcher 
was  for  being  legitimate,  and  having  his  wife 
out  to  Italy.  I  had  made  an  offer  to  the  lady 
to  bring  her  with  us  by  sea,  which  she  politely 
declined ;  doubtless,  out  of  fear  of  the  water : 
but  I  brought  him  a  box  full  of  goods,  which 
consoled  him  a  little.  I  fear  I  am  getting  a 
little  gossiping  here,  beyond  the  record ;  such 
is  the  contamination  of  these  personal  histories ; 
but  Fletcher,  having  by  nature  an  honest  Eng- 


22  LORD    BYRON. 

lish  face,  the  round  simplicity  of  which  no  so- 
phistication had  yet  succeeded  in  ruining,  la- 
dies of  various  ranks  in  Italy,  Venetian  coun- 
tesses, and  English  cook-maids,  had  a  trick  of 
taking  a  liking  to  it ;  and  the  presence  of  Mrs. 
Fletcher  might  afterwards  have  saved  me  some 
trouble.  This,  however,  is  a  bold  conjecture. 
Perhaps  it  might  have  been  worse.  O  Beau- 
mont !  hadst  thou  been  living  in  the  times  of 
this  the  namesake  of  thy  fellow-dramatist — but 
I  am  told  here,  that  my  apostrophes  will  be 
getting  scandalous. 

I  returned  to  Leghorn  ;  and,  taking  leave  of 
our  vessel,  we  put  up  at  an  hotel.  Mr.  Shelley 
then  came  to  us  from  his  villeggiatura  at  Lerici. 
His  town  abode,  as  well  as  Lord  Byron's,  was 
at  Pisa.  I  will  not  dwell  upon  the  moment. 
We  talked  of  a  thousand  things,  past,  present, 
and  to  come.  He  was  the  same  as  ever,  with 
the  exception  of  less  hope.  He  could  not  be 
otherwise.  But  he  prepared  me  to  find  others 
not  exactly  what  I  had  taken  them  for.  I 
little  thought  at  the  time,  how  much  reason  I 
should  have  to  remember  his  words. 

Leghorn  is  a  polite  Wapping,  with  a  square 


LORD    BYRON.  23 

and  a  theatre.  The  country  around  is  unin- 
teresting, when  you  become  acquainted  with 
it;  but  to  a  stranger,  the  realization  of  any 
thing  he  has  read  about  is  a  delight,  espe- 
cially of  such  things  as  vines  hanging  from 
trees,  and  the  sight  of  Apennines. 

Mr.  SheUey  accompanied  us  from  Leghorn 
to  Pisa,  in  order  to  see  us  fixed  in  our  new 
abode.  Lord  Byron  left  Monte-Nero  at  the 
same  time,  and  joined  us.  We  occupied  the 
ground-floor  of  his  Lordship's  house,  the  Casa 
Lanfranchi,  or  the  Lung*  Arno.  The  re- 
mainder was  inhabited  by  himself  and  the 
Gambas ;  but  the  father  and  son  were  then 
absent.  Divided  tenancies  of  this  kind  are 
common  in  Italy,  where  few  houses  are  in 
possession  of  one  family.  It  has  been  said  that 
Lord  Byron  portioned  off  a  part  of  his  own 
dwelling,  handsomely  fitted  it  up  for  us,  and 
heaped  on  us  in  this,  as  in  other  matters,  a 
variety  of  benefactions.  In  the  course  of  my 
narrative,  I  must  qualify  those  agreeable  fic- 
tions. In  the  first  place,  Lord  Byron  had 
never  made  use  of  the  ground-floor.  Formerly, 
it  was  not  the  custom  to  do  so  in  great  man- 


24  LORD    BYRON. 

sions,  the  splendour  of  the  abode  commencing 
up-stairs  :  nor  is  it  now,  where  the  house  is 
occupied  by  only  one  family,  and  there  is  room 
for  them  without  it ;  unless  they  descend  for 
coolness  in  summer-time.  Of  late  years,  es- 
pecially since  the  English  have  recommenced 
their  visits,  it  is  permitted  to  parlours  to  be 
respectable.  In  country-houses  of  a  modern 
standing,  I  have  seen  them  converted  into  the 
best  part  of  the  dwelling ;  but  the  old  man- 
sions were  constructed  to  a  different  end ;  the 
retainers  of  the  family,  or  the  youngest  bran- 
ches, if  it  was  very  large,  being  the  only  per- 
sons who  could  with  propriety  live  so  near 
their  mother  earth.  The  grated  windows  that 
are  seen  in  the  ground-floors  of  most  private 
houses  in  Italy,  have  survived  the  old  periods 
of  trouble  that  occasioned  them ;  and  it  is 
doubtless  to  those  periods  that  we  must  refer 
for  the  plebeianism  of  parlours. 

The  Casa  Lanfranchi  is  said  to  have  been 
built  by  Michael  Angelo,  and  is  worthy  of 
him.  It  is  in  a  bold  and  broad  style  through- 
out, with  those  harmonious  graces  of  propor- 
tion which  are  sure  to  be  found  in  an  Italian 


LOHD    BYRON.  25 

mansion.  The  outside  is  of  rough  marble. 
Lower  down  the  Lung'  Arno,  on  the  same 
side  of  the  way,  is  a  mansion  cased  with  po- 
lished marble.  But  I  have  written  of  these 
matters  in  another  work.  The  furniture  of 
our  apartments  was  good  and  respectable,  but 
of  the  plainest  and  cheapest  description,  consis- 
tent with  that  character.  It  was  chosen  by 
Mr.  Shelley,  who  intended  to  beg  my  accept- 
ance of  it,  and  who  knew,  situated  as  he  and 
I  were,  that  in  putting  about  us  such  furni- 
ture as  he  used  himself,  he  could  not  pay  us 
a  handsomer  or  more  welcome  compliment. 
When  the  apartments  were  fitted  up,  Lord 
Byron  insisted  upon  making  us  a  present  of 
the  goods  himself.  Mr.  Shelley  did  not  choose 
to  contest  the  point.  He  explained  the  cir- 
cumstance to  me;  and  this  is  the  amount  of 
the  splendour  with  which  some  persons  have 
been  pleased  to  surround  me  at  his  Lordship's 
expense.  I  will  here  mention  what  I  have  hap- 
pened to  omit  respecting  another  and  greater 
matter.  Two  hundred  pounds  were  sent  me 
from  Italy,  to  enable  me  to  leave  England 
with  comfort.  They  came  from  Lord  Byron, 


26  LORD    BYRON. 

and  nothing  was  said  to  me  of  security,  or  any 
thing  like  it.  Lord  Byron  had  offered  a  year 
or  two  before,  through  Mr.  Shelley,  to  send 
me  four  hundred  pounds  for  a  similar  purpose, 
which  offer  I  declined.  I  now  accepted  the 
two  hundred  pounds ;  but  I  found  afterwards 
that  his  Lordship  had  had  a  bond  for  the 
money  from  Mr.  Shelley.  I  make  no  com- 
ment on  these  things.  I  merely  state  the 
truth,  because  others  have  mis-stated  it,  and 
because  I  begin  to  be  sick  of  maintaining  a 
silence,  which  does  no  good  to  others,  and  is 
only  turned  against  one's  self. 

We  had  not  been  in  the  house  above  an  hour 
or  two,  when  my  friend  brought  the  celebrated 
surgeon,  Vacca,  to  see  Mrs.  Hunt.  He  had 
a  pleasing  intelligent  face,  and  was  the  most 
gentlemanlike  Italian  I  ever  saw.  Vacca  pro- 
nounced his  patient  to  be  in  a  decline:  and  lit- 
tle hope  was  given  us  by  others  that  she  would 
survive  beyond  the  year.  She  is  now  alive, 
and  likely  to  live  many  years;  and  Vacca  is 
dead.  I  do  not  say  this  to  his  disparagement ; 
for  he  was  very  skilful,  and  deserved  his  cele- 
brity. But  it  appears  to  me,  from  more  than 


LORD    BYRON.      .  27 

one  remarkable  instance,  that  there  is  a  super- 
stition about  what  are  called  declines  and  con- 
sumptions, from  which  the  most  eminent  of 
the  profession  are  not  free.  I  suspect,  that 
people  of  this  tendency,  with  a  proper  mode 
of  living,  may  reach  to  as  good  a  period  of 
existence  as  any  other.  The  great  secret  in 
this  as  in  all  other  cases,  and  indeed  in  almost 
all  moral  as  well  as  physical  cases  of  ill,  is  in 
diet.  If  some  demi-god  could  regulate  for 
mankind  what  they  should  eat  and  drink,  he 
would  put  an  end,  at  one  stroke,  to  half  the 
troubles  which  the  world  undergo,  some  of  the 
most  romantic  sorrows  with  which  they  flatter 
themselves  not  excepted.  It  is  by  not  exceed- 
ing in  this  point,  and  by  keeping  natural  hours, 
that  such  nations  as  the  Persians  are  enabled  to 
be  cheerful,  even  under  a  load  of  despotism ; 
while  others,  among  the  freest  on  earth,  are 
proverbial  for  spleen  and  melancholy.  Our 
countrymen,  manly  as  they  are,  effeminately 
bewail  the  same  climate,  which  the  gypsy,  with 
his  ruddy  cheek,  laughs  at.  But  one  change  is 
linked  with  another;  there  must  be  more  leisure 
and  other  comforts  to  stand  people  instead  of 


28  LORD    BYRON. 

these  ticklings  and  crammings  of  their  despair  ; 
and  the  vanity  of  old  patchwork  endurance  is 
loth  to  see  any  thing  but  vanity  in  the  work  of 
reformation. 

The  next  day,  while  in  the  drawing-room 
with  Lord  Byron,  I  had  a  curious  specimen  of 
Italian  manners.  It  was  like  a  scene  in  an 
opera.  One  of  his  servants,  a  young  man,  sud- 
denly came  in  smiling,  and  was  followed  by 
his  sister,  a  handsome  brunette,  in  a  bodice  and 
sleeves,  and  her  own  hair.  She  advanced  to 
his  Lordship  to  welcome  him  back  to  Pisa,  and 
present  him  with  a  basket  of  flowers.  In  doing 
this,  she  took  his  hand  and  kissed  it;  then 
turned  to  the  stranger,  and  kissed  his  hand 
also.  I  thought  it  a  very  becoming,  unbecom- 
ing action;  and  that  at  least  it  should  have  been 
acknowledged  by  a  kiss  of  another  description; 
and  the  girl  appeared  to  be  of  the  same  opinion, 
at  least  with  regard  to  one  of  us,  who  stood 
blushing  and  looking  in  her  eyes,  and  not 
knowing  well  what  to  be  at.  I  thought  we 
ought  to  have  struck  up  a  quartett.  But  there 
might  have  ensued  a  quintett,  not  so  harmo- 
nious ;  and  the  scene  was  hastily  concluded. 


LORD    BYRON.  29 

It  is  the  custom  in  Italy,  as  it  was  in  Eng- 
land, for  inferiors  to  kiss  your  hand  in  coming 
and  going.  There  is  an  air  of  good-will  in  it 
that  is  agreeable ;  but  the  implied  sense  of 
inferiority  is  not  so  pleasant.  Servants  have  a 
better  custom  of  wishing  you  a  good  evening 
when  they  bring  in  lights.  To  this  you  may 
respond  in  like  manner ;  after  which  it  seems 
impossible  for  the  sun  to  "  go  down  on  the 
wrath,"  if  there  is  any,  of  either  party. 

In  a  day  or  two  Mr.  Shelley  took  leave  of  us 
to  return  to  Lerici  for  the  rest  of  the  season, 
meaning,  however,  to  see  us  more  than  once  in 
the  interval.  I  spent  one  delightful  afternoon 
with  him,  wandering  about  Pisa,  and  visiting 
the  cathedral.  On  the  night  of  the  same  day,  he 
took  a  post-chaise  for  Leghorn,  intending  next 
morning  to  sign  his  will  in  that  city,  and  then 
depart  with  his  friend  Captain  Williams  for 
Lerici.  I  earnestly  entreated  him,  if  the  wea- 
ther was  violent,  not  to  give  way  to  his  daring 
spirit,  and  venture  to  sea.  He  promised  me  he 
would  not ;  and  it  seems  that  he  did  set  off 
later  than  he  otherwise  would  have  done,  and 
apparently  at  a  more  favourable  moment.  I 


30  LORD    BYRON. 

never  beheld  him  more.  The  superstitious 
might  discern  something  strange  in  that  con- 
nexion of  his  last  will  and  testament  with 
his  departure ;  but  the  will,  it  seems,  was  not 
to  be  found.  The  same  night  there  was  a  tre- 
mendous storm  of  thunder  and  lightning,  which 
made  us  very  anxious;  but  we  hoped  our 
friend  had  arrived  before  then.  When  Mr. 
Trelawney  came  to  Pisa,  and  told  us  he  was 
missing,  I  underwent  one  of  the  sensations 
which  we  read  of  in  books,  but  seldom  expe- 
rience :  I  was  tongue-tied  with  horror.  The 
rest  is  told  in  another  part  of  the  work ;  and  I 
may  be  spared  dwelling  on  the  subject.  From 
that  time  Italy  was  a  black  place  to  me. 

Lord  Byron  requested  me  to  look  upon  him 
as  standing  in  Mr.  Shelley's  place,  and  said  that 
1  should  find  him  the  same  friend  that  the  other 
had  been.  My  heart  died  within  me  to  hear 
him  :  I  made  the  proper  acknowledgment ;  but 
I  knew  what  he  meant,  and  I  more  than  doubt- 
ed whether  even  in  that,  the  most  trivial  part 
of  friendship,  he  could  resemble  Mr.  Shelley 
if  he  would.  Circumstances  unfortunately 
rendered  the  matter  of  too  much  import- 


LORD    BYRON.  31 

anee  to  me  at  the  moment.     I  had  reason  to 
fear  : — I  was   compelled  to  try  : — and  things 
turned   out  as  I  dreaded.      The  public   have 
been  given  to  understand  that  Lord  Byron's 
purse  was  at   my  command,  and  that  I  used 
it  according  to  the  spirit  with  which  it  was 
offered.     /  did  so.     Stem  necessity,  and  a  large 
family,   compelled  me;    and  during  our   resi- 
dence at  Pisa,  I  had  from  him,  or  rather  from 
his  steward,  to  whom  he  always  sent  me  for  the 
money,  and  who  doled  it  out  to  me  as  if  my 
disgraces  were  being  counted,  the  sum  of  se- 
venty pounds.     This  sum,  together  with  the 
payment  of  our  expenses  when  we  accompa- 
nied him  from  Pisa  to  Genoa,  and  thirty  pounds 
with  which  he  enabled  us  subsequently  to  go 
from  Genoa  to  Florence,  was  all  the  money  I 
ever  received  from  Lord  Byron,  exclusive  of 
the  two  hundred  pounds  in  the  first  instance, 
which   he  made  a  debt   of   Mr.   Shelley's  by 
taking  his  bond.     I  have  some  peculiar  notions 
on  the  subject  of  money,  as  the  reader  will  see 
more   fully.     They  will   be  found  to  involve 
considerable   difference    of    opinion   with    the 
community  in  a  state  of  things  like  the  pre- 


32  LORD    BYRON. 

sent,  particularly  in  a  commercial  country ; 
and  many  may  think  me  as  deficient  in  spirit 
on  that  point,  as  I  think  them  mistaken  in 
their  notions  of  what  spirit  is,  and  mistakenly 
educated.  I  may  be  wrong  (as  people  say  when 
they  think  themselves  in  the  right),  but  in  the 
mean  time,  judging  even  by  what  they  them- 
selves think  of  the  little  happiness  and  disin- 
terestedness that  is  to  be  found  in  the  present 
state  of  things,  I  am  sure  they  are  not  right ; 
and  that  the  system  of  mere  bustle  and  compe- 
tition ends  in  little  good  to  any  body.  I  can 
see  an  improvement  in  it  ultimately,  when  the 
vicissitude  comes  which  every  body  attributes 
to  the  nature  of  human  society,  and  which 
nobody  seems  to  believe  in  with  regard  to 
their  own  customs  : — but  I  shall  be  digressing 
too  far.  Among  other  things,  in  which  I  dif- 
fer in  point  of  theory  (for  in  practice  I  am 
bound  to  say  that  of  late,  though  for  other 
reasons,  I  have  totally  altered  in  this  particu- 
lar), I  have  not  had  that  horror  of  being  under 
obligation,  which  is  thought  an  essential  re- 
finement in  money  matters,  and  which  leads 
some  really  generous  persons,  as  well  as  some 


LORD    BYRON.  33 

who  only  seek   personal   importance   in  then- 
generosity,  to  think  they  have  a  right  to  be- 
stow favours  which  they  would  be  mortified 
to  receive.     But  at  the  same  time  in  this  as  in 
every  thing  else,  "  the  same  is  not  the  same." 
Men  and  modes  make  a  difference  :  and  I  must 
say   two  things  for   myself,  for  which  every 
body  may  give  me  credit,  who  deserves  credit 
himself ;  first,  that  although  (to  my  great  sor- 
row and  repentance)  I  have  not  been  careful 
enough  to  enable  myself  to  be  generous  in  this 
respect  towards  others,   in   any  degree  worth 
speaking  of,  nor  even  (with  shame  I  say  it)  just 
to  my  own  children  (though  I  trust  to  outlive 
that  culpability),  yet  I  have  never  refused  to 
share  my  last  sixpence  (no  idle  phrase  in  this  in- 
stance) with  any  friend  who  was  in  want  of  it ; 
and  second,  that  although  it  has  been  a  delight 
to  me  to  receive  hundreds  from  some,  I  could 
not   receive  without  anguish   as   many  pence 
from  others ;  nor  should  I  ever,  by  any  chance 
have  applied  to  them,  but  for  a  combination 
of  circumstances  that  mixed  me  up  with  them 
at  the  moment.     I  do  not  mean  to  say  that 
Lord   Byron  was  above  receiving  obligations. 

VOL.    I.  D 


34  LORD    BYRON. 

I   know   not  how  it  might  have  been  with 
respect  to  large  ones,  and  before  all  the  world. 
Perhaps  he  was  never  reduced  to  the  necessity 
of  making  the  experiment.      But  he  could  re- 
ceive some  very  strange  and  small  ones,  such 
as  made  people  wonder  over  their  wine ;  and 
he  could  put  himself  to,  at  least,  a  disadvantage 
in  larger  matters,  usually  supposed  to  be  reci- 
procal, which  made  them  wonder  still  more. 
If  I  am  thought  here  to  touch  upon  very  pri- 
vate and  delicate  things,  especially  regarding  a 
person  who  is  no  more,  I  must  offer  three  more 
remarks  to  the  consideration  of  those,  and  those 
only,  whom  I  have  just  appealed  to ;  I  mean, 
such  as  being   speakers  of  truth   themselves, 
have  an  instinct  in  discovering  those  that  re- 
semble them.     The  first  is,  that  Lord  Byron 
made   no    scruple    of   talking  very    freely   of 
me  and  mine;    second,   that   in   consequence 
of   this   freedom,   as  well    as    from    the    gra- 
tuitous talking  of  those  who  knew  nothing 
about  the  matter,  very  erroneous  conclusions 
have   been    drawn    about    us   on   more    than 
one  point;  and  third,   that  it  is  a  principle 
with  me  never  to  give  others  to  understand 


LORD    BYRON.  35 

any  thing  against  an  acquaintance,  not  only 
which  I  would  not  give,  but  which  I  have 
not  given  himself  to  understand ;  a  principle, 
to  which  this  book  will  have  furnished  no  ex- 
ception,* It  may  be  judged  by  this,  how  little 
I  have  been  in  the  habit  of  speaking  against 
any  body,  and  what  a  nuisance  it  is  to  me  to 
do  it  now. 

There  was  another  thing  that  startled  me  in 
the  Casa  Lanfranchi.  I  had  been  led  to  con- 
sider the  connexion  between  Lord  Byron  and 
Madame  Guiccioli  as  more  than  warranted  by 
Italian  manners.  Her  husband  was  old  enough 
to  be  her  father.  Every  body  knows  how 
shamefully  matches  of  this  kind  are  permitted 
to  take  place,  even  in  England.  But  in  Italy, 
they  are  often  accompanied,  and  almost  always 
followed,  by  compromises  of  a  very  singular 
description,  of  which  nobody  thinks  ill;  and 
in  fine,  I  had  been  given  to  understand  that 

*  If  it  might  appear  otherwise  with  regard  to  Mr. 
Moore,  whom  I  have  never  seen  or  corresponded  with 
since  his  efforts  against  the  Liberal,  he  has  not  been  the 
less  aware  of  the  feelings  entertained  on  the  subject  by 
myself  and  others. 

D    2 


3D  LORD    BYRON. 

the  attachment  was  real ;  that  it  was  rescuing 
Lord  Byron  from  worse  connexions  ;  and  that 
the  lady's  family  (which  was  true)  approved  it. 
I  was  not  prepared  to  find  the  father  and  bro- 
ther living  in  the  same  house  ;  but  taking  the 
national  matters  into  consideration,  and  differ- 
ing very  considerably  with  the  notions  enter- 
tained respecting  the  intercourse  of  the  sexes 
in  more  countries  than  one,  I  was  prepared 
to  treat  with  respect  what  I  conceived  to  be 
founded  in  serious  feelings ;  and  saw,  even  in 
that  arrangement,  something  which,  though  it 
startled  my  English  habits  at  first,  seemed  to 
be  a  still  farther  warrant  of  innocence  of  in- 
tention, and  exception  to  general  rules.  It  is 
true,  that  when  the  Pope  sanctioned  her  sepa- 
ration from  her  husband,  he  stipulated  that  she 
should  live  with  her  father ;  and  as  the  separa- 
tion took  place  on  account  of  the  connexion 
with  Lord  Byron,  the  nullification  of  the  edict 
in  thus  adhering  to  the  letter  and  violating 
the  spirit  of  it,  may  have  had  an  ill  look  in  a 
Catholic  country.  But  times  are  altered  in 
that  matter ;  and  what  enabled  me  the  better 
to  have  a  good  opinion  of  the  arrangement, 


LORD    BYKON.  37 

was  the  conclusion  I  came  to  respecting   the 
dispositions  of  the  old  Count  and  his  son,  both 
very  natural  and  amiable  persons,  with  great 
simplicity  of  manners,  and  such  a  patriotic  re- 
gard for  their  country,  as  had  not  only  com- 
mitted their  reputation  for  wisdom  in  the  eyes 
of  the  selfish,  but  got  them  into  real  trouble, 
and  driven  them  into  banishment.     And  I  am 
of  opinion  to  this  day,  that   they   considered 
their  conduct  in  warranting  the   intimacy  in 
question,  not  only  to  be  justifiable  but  laud- 
able ;  advantageous  to  the  habits  of  a  man,  of 
whose  acquaintance  they  felt  proud ;  and  per- 
haps even  as  making  some  amends  to  the  lady, 
for  the  connexion  which  it  superseded.     The 
family  came  from   Ravenna.     The  people   in 
that  quarter  are  more  simple  and  unsophisticate 
than  in  the  more  frequented  parts  of  Italy ; 
worse  perhaps  where  they  are  bad,  that  is  to 
say,   more  gross   and   violent ;  but   better  (at 
least  in  the  northern  sense  of  the  word)  where 
they  are  good  ; — something  more  allied  to  the 
northern  character  and  to  the  Germans.     The 
women  are  apt  to  be  fair,  and  to   have  fair 
tresses,   as    the   lady   in    question   had.      The 


38  LORD    BYRON. 

men  also   are  of  lighter   complexions   than   is 
usual    in   Italy.       The    old   Count    had    the 
look  of  an   English  country  gentleman,  with 
a  paternal   gossiping   manner,   and  apparently 
no  sort  of  pride.     The  young  one,  who  has 
since  been  known  and  esteemed   in  England, 
and   is  an   enthusiast   and   active   partizan   in 
the  cause  of  Greece,  was  equally  pleasing  in 
his  manners,  and  evinced  great  interest  in  all 
that   regarded  the    progress    of   freedom   and 
knowledge.     He  would  ask,  with  all  the  zest 
of  an  Englishman,  what  was  doing  by  Lord 
Castlereagh  and  the  House  of  Commons  ;  and 
when   I   apologized    to   him   for  running  on 
in  my  bad  Italian;    would  reassure  me  with 
the  best  grace  in  the  world,  and  say  it  was  de- 
lightful to  him  to  converse  with  me,  for  I  gave 
him  "  hope."     The  Italians  are  very  kind  to 
bad  speakers  of  their  language,  and  ought  to 
shame  us  in   that  matter.      I  confess,    I   can 
never  hear  a  foreigner  speak  bad  English  with- 
out such  a  tendency  to  laugh  as  puts  me  to 
the  torture ;    whereas  I  have  never  known  an 
Italian's  gravity  disturbed  by  the  most  ludi- 
crous mistakes,  but  in  one   instance,  and, then 


LORD    BYRON.  39 

it  was  the  idea  and  not  the  word  that  discom- 
moded him.  I  have  known  them  even  repeat 
your  mistakes  with  an  unconscious  look,  as  if 
they  were  proper  expressions.  I  remember 
walking  once  with  my  young  acquaintance, 
Luigi  Gianetti,  of  Pisa,  all  the  way  from 
Florence  to  Maiano,  and  holding  a  long  ethi- 
cal discourse  on  the  superiority  of  the  "  good 
clever  man"  to  the  "  bad  clever  man,"  in  the 
course  of  which  I  must  have  uttered  a  thou- 
sand malapropisms,  not  one  of  which  did  he 
give  me  a  sense  of  by  a  smile. 

But  to  return  to  the  Gambas.  The  way  in 
which  the  connexion  between  the  young  Coun- 
tess and  Lord  Byron  had  originated,  and  was 
sanctioned,  was,  I  thought,  clear  enough;  but 
unfortunately  it  soon  became  equally  clear,  that 
there  was  no  real  love  on  either  side.  The 
lady,  I  believe,  was  not  unsusceptible  of  a  real 
attachment,  and  most  undoubtedly  she  was 
desirous  that  Lord  Byron  should  cultivate  it, 
and  make  her  as  proud  and  as  affectionate  as 
she  was  anxious  to  be.  But  to  hear  her  talk  of 
him,  she  must  have  pretty  soon  discerned,  that 
this  was  impossible:  and  the  manner  of  her 


40  LORD    BYRON. 

talking  rendered  it  more  than  doubtful  whether 
she  had  ever  loved,  or  could  love  him,  to  the  ex- 
tent that  she  supposed.  I  believe  she  would  have 
taken  great  pride  in  the  noble  Bard,  if  he  would 
have  let  her ;  and  remained  a  faithful  and  affec- 
tionate companion  as  long  as  he  pleased  to  have 
her  so ;  but  this  depended  more  on  his  treat- 
ment of  her,  and  still  more  on  the  way  in  which 
he  conducted  himself  towards  others,  than 
on  any  positive  qualities  of  his  own.  On  the 
other  hand,  he  was  alternately  vexed  and  gra- 
tified by  her  jealousies.  His  regard  being 
founded  solely  on  her  person,  and  not  surviv- 
ing in  the  shape  of  a  considerate  tenderness, 
had  so  degenerated  in  a  short  space  of  time, 
that  if  you  were  startled  to  hear  the  lady  com- 
plain of  him  as  she  did,  and  that  too  with  com- 
parative strangers,  you  were  shocked  at  the  li- 
cence which  he  would  allow  his  criticisms  on  her. 
The  truth  is,  as  I  have  said  before,  that  he  had 
never  known  any  thing  of  love  but  the  ani- 
mal passion.  His  poetry  had  given  this  its 
gracefuller  aspect,  when  young:  —  he  could 
believe  in  the  passion  of  Romeo  and  Juliet. 
But  the  moment  he  thought  he  had  attained 


LOUD    BYRON.  41 

to  years  of  discretion,  what  with  the  help  of 
bad  companions,  and  a  sense  of  his  own  merits 
for  want  of  comparisons  to  check  it,  he  had 
made  the  wise  and  blessed  discovery,  that  wo- 
men might  love  himself  though  he  could  not 
return  the  passion ;  and  that  all  women's  love, 
the  very  best  of  it,  was  nothing  but  vanity. 
To  be  able  to  love  a  quality  for  its  own  sake, 
exclusive  of  any  reaction  upon  one's  self-love, 
seemed  a  thing  that  never  entered  his  head. 
If  at  any  time,  therefore,  he  ceased  to  love  a 
woman's  person,  and  found  leisure  to  detect 
in  her  the  vanities  natural  to  a  flattered  beauty, 
he  set  no  bounds  to  the  light  and  coarse  way  in 
which  he  would  speak  of  her.  There  was  coarse- 
ness in  the  way  in  which  he  would  talk  to  wo- 
men, even  when  he  was  in  his  best  humour  with 
them.  I  do  not  mean  on  the  side  of  voluptuous- 
ness, which  is  rather  an  excess  than  a  coarse- 
ness; the  latter  being  an  impertinence,  which 
is  the  reverse  of  the  former.  I  have  seen  him 
call  their  attention  to  circumstances,  which 
made  you  wish  yourself  a  hundred  miles  off. 
They  were  connected  with  any  thing  but  the 
graces  with  which  a  poet  would  encircle  his 


42  LORD    BYRON. 

Venus.  He  said  to  me  once  of  a  friend  of 
his,  that  he  had  been  spoilt  by  reading  Swift. 
He  himself  had  certainly  not  escaped  the  in- 
fection. 

What  completed  the  distress  of  this  con- 
nexion, with  respect  to  the  parties  themselves, 
was  his  want  of  generosity  in  money-matters. 
The  lady  was  independent  of  him,  and  disinte- 
rested ;  and  he  seemed  resolved  that  she  should 
have  every  mode  but  one,  of  proving  that 
she  could  remain  so.  1  will  not  repeat  what 
was  said  and  lamented  on  this  sulgect.  I 
would  not  say  any  thing  about  it,  nor  about 
twenty  other  matters,  but  that  they  hang  to- 
gether more  or  less,  and  are  connected  with 
the  truth  of  a  portrait  which  it  has  become 
necessary  to  me  to  paint.  It  is  fortunate  that 
there  are  some  which  I  can  omit.  But  I  am 
of  opinion  that  no  woman  could  have  loved 
him  long.  Pride  in  his  celebrity,  and  the  wish 
not  to  appear  to  have  been  mistaken  or  under- 
valued on  their  own  parts,  might  have  kept  up 
an  appearance  of  love,  long  after  it  had  ceased  ; 
but  the  thing  would  have  gone  without  doubt, 
and  that  very  speedily.  Love  may  be  kept 


LORD    BYRON.  43 

up  in  spite  of  great  defects,  and  even  great 
offences, — offences  too  against  itself.  Lord 
Byron,  out  of  a  certain  instinct,  was  fond  of 
painting  this  in  his  poetry.  But  there  are 
certain  deficiencies,  which  by  depriving  a  pas- 
sion of  the  last  resources  of  self-love  necessary 
to  every  thing  human,  deny  to  it  its  last  con- 
solation,— that  of  taking  pity  on  itself;  and 
without  this,  it  is  not  in  nature  that  it  should 
exist.  Lord  Byron  painted  his  heroes  crimi- 
nal, wilful,  even  selfish  in  great  things ;  but 
he  took  care  not  to  paint  them  mean  in  little 
ones.  He  took  care  also  to  give  them  a  great 
quantity  of  what  he  was  singularly  deficient  in, 
— which  was  self-possession :  for  when  it  is 
added,  that  he  had  no  address,  even  in  the  or- 
dinary sense  of  the  word, — that  he  hummed 
and  hawed,  and  looked  confused,  on  very  tri- 
vial occasions, — that  he  could  much  more  easily 
get  into  a  dilemma  than  out  of  it,  and  with 
much  greater  skill  wound  the  self-love  of  others 
than  relieve  them, — the  most  common-place  be- 
lievers in  a  poet's  attractions  will  begin  to  sus- 
pect, that  it  is  possible  for  his  books  to  be  the 
best  part  of  him. 


44  LORD    BYRON. 

From  the  dilemma  into  which  I  thus  found 
myself  thrown,   I  was  relieved  by  a  very  tri- 
vial circumstance.     My  M'ife  knew  nothing  of 
Italian,  and  did  not  care  to  learn  it.     Madame 
Guiccioli  could    not    speak    English.      They 
were  subsequently  introduced  to  one  another 
during   a   chance   meeting,   but   that  was  ah". 
No  proposition  was  made  for  an  intimacy  on 
either  side,  and  the  families  remained  separate. 
This,  however,  was  perhaps  the  first  local  cause 
of  the  diminished  cordiality  of  intercourse  be- 
tween Lord  Byron  and  myself.     He  had  been 
told,   what   was  very  true,    that   Mrs.    Hunt, 
though  living  in  all  respects  after  the  fashion 
of  an  English  wife,  was  any  thing  but  illiberal 
with  regard  to  others  ;  yet  he  saw  her  taking  no 
steps  for  a  farther  intimacy.     He  learnt,  what 
was  equally  true,  that  she  was  destitute,  to  a 
remarkable  degree,  of  all  care  about  rank  and 
titles.     She  had  been  used  to  live  in  a  world  of 
her  own,  and  was,  and  is,  I  really  believe,  abso- 
lutely unimpressible  in  that  respect.     It  is  pos- 
sible, that  her  inexperience  of  any  mode  of  life 
but  her  own,  may  have  rendered  her  somewhat 
jealous  in  behalf  of  it,  and  not  willing  to  be 


LOUD    BYRON.  45 

brought  into  comparison  with  pretensions,  the 
defects  of  which  she  is  acute  to  discern  ;  but 
her  indifference  to  the  nominal  and  conventional 
part  of  their  importance  is  unaffectedly  real;  and 
it  partakes  of  that  sense  of  the  ludicrous,  which 
is  so  natural  to  persons  to  whom  they  are  of 
no  consequence,  and  so  provoking  to  those  who 
regard  them  otherwise.  Finally,  Lord  Byron, 
who  was  as  acute  as  a  woman  in  those  respects, 
very  speedily  discerned  that  he  did  not  stand 
very  high  in  her  good  graces;  and  accordingly 
he  set  her  down  to  a  very  humble  rank  in  his 
own.  As  I  oftener  went  to  his  part  of  the 
house,  than  he  came  to  mine,  he  seldom  saw 
her;  and  when  he  did,  the  conversation  was 
awkward  on  his  side,  and  provokingly  self- 
possessed  on  her's.  He  said  to  her  one  day, 
"  What  do  you  think,  Mrs.  Hunt  ?  Trelaw- 
ney  has  been  speaking  against  my  morals ! 
What  do  you  think  of  that !"— "  It  is  the  first 
time,"  said  Mrs.  Hunt,  *'  I  ever  heard  of 
them."  This,  which  would  have  set  a  man  of 
address  upon  his  wit,  completely  dashed,  and  re- 
duced him  to  silence.  But  her  greatest  offence 
was  in  something  which  I  had  occasion  to  tell 


46  LORD    BYRON. 

him.  He  was  very  bitter  one  day  upon  some 
friends  of  mine,  criticising  even  their  personal 
appearance,  and  that  in  no  good  taste.  At  the 
same  time  he  was  affecting  to  be  very  pleasant 
and  good-humoured,  and  without  any  "  offence 
in  the  world."  All  this  provoked  me  to  mor- 
tify him,  and  I  asked  if  he  knew  what  Mrs. 
Hunt  had  said  one  day  to  the  Shelleys  of  his 
picture  by  Harlovve  ?  (It  is  the  fastidious,  scorn- 
ful portrait  of  him,  affectedly  looking  down.) 
He  said  he  did  not,  and  was  curious  to  know. 
An  engraving  of  it,  I  told  him,  was  shown  her, 
and  her  opinion  asked :  upon  which  she  observed, 
that  it  "  resembled  a  great  school-boy,  who  had 
had  a  plain  bun  given  him,  instead  of  a  plum 
one."  I  did  not  add,  that  our  friends  shook 
with  laughter  at  this  idea  of  the  noble  original, 
because  it  was  "  so  like  him."  He  looked  as 
blank  as  possible,  and  never  again  criticised  the 
personal  appearance  of  those  whom  I  regarded. 
It  was  on  accounts  like  these,  that  he  talked  of 
Mrs.  Hunt  as  being  "  no  great  things."  My- 
self, because  I  did  not  take  all  his  worldly  com- 
mon-places for  granted,  nor  enter  into  the  merit 
of  his  bad  jokes  on  women,  he  represented  as 


LORD    BYRON.  47 

a  "  proser :"  and  the  children,   than  whom,  I 
will  venture  to  say,  it  was  impossible  to  have 
quieter  or  more  respectable  in  the  house,  or  any 
that  came  less  in  his  way,  he  pronounced  to  be 
"  impracticable."     But  that  was  the  reason.     I 
very  soon  found  that  it  was  desirable  to  keep 
them  out  of  his  way ;  and  although  this  was 
done  in  the  easiest  and  most  natural  manner, 
and  was  altogether  such  a  measure  as  a  person 
of   less  jealousy  might    have    regarded    as    a 
consideration  for  his  quiet,  he  resented  it,  and 
could  not  help  venting  his  spleen  in  talking  of 
them.     The  worst  of  it  was,  that  when  they 
did  come    in   his    way,    they   were    nothing 
daunted.     They  had  lived  in  a  natural,  not  an 
artificial  state  of  intercourse,  and  were  equally 
sprightly,  respectful,    and  self-possessed.     My 
eldest  boy  surprised  him  with  his  address,  ne- 
ver losing  his  singleness  of  manner,  nor  exhi- 
biting pretensions  of  which  he  was  too  young 
to  know  any  thing,  yet  giving  him  his  title  at 
due  intervals,  and  appearing,  in  fact,  as  if  he 
had  always  lived  in  the  world  instead  of  out 
of  it.     This  put  him  out  of  his  reckoning.     To 
the  second,  who  was  more  struck  with  his  re- 


48  LORD    BYRON. 

putation,  and  had  a  vivacity  of  temperament 
that  rendered  such  lessons  dangerous,  he  said, 
one  day,  that  he  must  take  care  how  he  got 
notions  in  his  head  about  truth  and  sincerity, 
for  they  would  hinder  his  getting  on  in  the 
world.  This,  doubtless,  was  rather  intended  to 
vent  a  spleen  of  his  own,  than  to  modify  the 
opinions  of  the  child ;  but  the  peril  was  not 
the  less,  and  I  had  warning  given  me  that  he 
could  say  worse  things  when  I  was  not  present. 
Thus  the  children  became  "  impracticable ;" 
and,  luckily,  they  remained  so. 

One  thing,  among  others  in  which  he  found 
myself  impracticable,  annoyed  him  exceed- 
ingly ;  so  much  so,  that  I  would  have  given 
it  up,  and  the  rest  too,  if  the  change  would 
not  have  done  more  harm  than  good.  I  the 
more  readily  speak  of  it,  because  it  reminds 
me  of  something  which  I  have  omitted,  and 
which  I  might  reasonably  be  accused  of  omit- 
ting to  my  own  advantage.  While  I  was 
writing  the  "  Story  of  Rimini,"  Lord  Byron 
saw  the  manuscript  from  time  to  time,  and 
made  his  remarks  upon  it.  He  spoke  also  to 
Murray  respecting  the  publication.  Murray 


LORD    BYRON.  49 

was  of  an  opposite  side  in  politics  both  to  the 
noble  Lord  and  myself;  but  he  was  glad  to 
publish  with  his  Lordship,  for  considerations 
which  he  found  not  incompatible  with  his 
political  philosophy ;  and  he  said  that  he  was 
willing  to  publish  for  me,  out  of  a  sense  of 
liberality  and  fair  dealing.  A  friend  of  mine 
had  told  me,  as  an  instance  of  his  superiority 
to  mere  party  views,  that  he  piqued  himself 
upon  a  "  Life  of  Napoleon"  which  he  was 
about  to  publish,  and  which  was  to  be  very 
impartial.  In  short,  Murray  had  himself  im- 
portuned me  some  years  before  to  write  for 
"  The  Quarterly  Review."  I  will  not  swear, 
that  in  putting  the  "  Story  of  Rimini"  into  his 
hands,  I  had  not  something  of  an  instinctive 
sense  that  I  was  securing  myself  against  the 
more  violent  hostilities  of  that  review.  I  will 
not  swear  this,  because  there  is  always  some- 
thing in  the  '<  last  recesses  of  the  mind,"  of 
which  spectators  may  be  better  judges  than 
ourselves.  But  Mr.  Hazlitt,  with  his  extra- 
subtleties,  was  out,  when  he  thought  I  put  Mr. 
Gifford's  epitaph  on  his  servant  into  "  The  Ex- 
aminer," with  a  view  to  that  end.  The  coinci- 

VOL.  I.  E 


50  LORD    BYRON. 

dence  was  curious,  I  admit ;  but  it  was  nothing 
more.  The  epitaph  was  sent  me.  as  things  fa- 
vourable to  others  of  the  opposite  party  had 
been  sent  me  before,  with  a  recommendation  of  it 
to  my  attention,  and  a  plain  hint,  that  my  credit 
for  impartiality  was  concerned  in  the  manner  in 
which  I  should  treat  it.  It  is  well  known,  and 
has  been  sometimes  lamented  (by  Mr.  Hazlitt 
among  others),  that  the  liberal  side  of  politics 
piqued  itself  upon  the  greater  degree  of  gene- 
rosity with  which  it  could  afford  to  speak  of  its 
enemies,  and  do  justice  to  what  it  thought  me- 
ritorious in  them.  I  may  add,  that "  The  Exa- 
miner" was  foremost  in  the  display  of  this 
piece  of  knight-errantry  :  that  it  always  spoke 
of  Napoleon  as  a  great  man,  though  it  held 
him  up  as  a  betrayer  of  the  cause  of  freedom  ; 
that  it  was  among  the  foremost  to  hail  Sir 
Walter  Scott  as  a  novelist,  though  it  thought 
little  of  him  as  a  poet,  and  scornfully  as  a  poli- 
tician ;  and  that  at  one  time  it  was  almost  ex- 
clusive as  a  journal,  in  its  admiration  of  the 
poetical  genius  of  Wordsworth,  of  whom  it 
nevertheless  felt  ashamed  as  a  renegado.  Lord 
Byron  used  to  accuse  me  of  making  a  diver- 


LORD    BYROX.  51 

sion  on  the  town  in  favour  of  Wordsworth; 
and  I  have  reason  to  believe,  that  the  poet  him- 
self was  not  without  an  opinion  to  the  same 
effect.  All  I  mean  to  say  is,  that  had  the  epi- 
taph written  by  Mr.  Gifford  come  before  me 
at  any  time,  it  would  have  met  with  the  same 
reception,  because  I  thought  well  of  it.  That 
I  was  not  sorry  at  the  coincidence  (which  is 
possible)  I  cannot  pretend  to  acknowledge, 
because  I  have  no  recollection  of  the  kind ; 
but  I  confess,  that  had  I  known  as  much  of 
the  impulses  of  weak  men  at  that  time  as  I  do 
now,  I  would  not  have  incurred,  by  publish- 
ing the  epitaph,  a  greater  portion  of  malig- 
nity, than  the  review  was  at  all  events  pre- 
pared to  assail  me  with.  My  opinion  of  Mur- 
ray's conduct  is,  that  he  was  glad  of  the  op- 
portunity of  showing  his  impartiality  so  far 
with  regard  to  one  of  his  publications,  as  to 
allow  his  review  to  cut  it  up  ;  and  I  can  easily 
enough  imagine,  that  Gifford,  or  whoever  the 
poor  fellow  was  that  did  cut  it  up,  was  the 
more  delighted  with  his  task,  in  proportion  to 
the  sense  which  he  supposed  me  to  entertain 
of  his  power.  Lord  Byron  perhaps  may  have 

E  2 


52  LORD    BYRON. 

felt  piqued  at  the  review  on  his  own  ac- 
count. I  forget  whether  he  ever  alluded  to 
it.  I  think  not.  He  condescended,  among  his 
other  timid  deferences  to  "  the  town,"  to  be 
afraid  of  Gifford.  There  was  an  interchange 
of  flatteries  between  them,  not  tjie  less  subtle 
for  Gifford's  occasionally  affecting  a  pater- 
nal tone  of  remonstrance  ;  and  they  were 
"  friends"  to  the  last ;  though  Lord  Byron, 
(to  say  nothing  of  that  being  a  reason  also) 
could  not  help  giving  him  a  secret  hit  now 
and  then,  when  the  church-and-state  review 
became  shy  of  him.  Gifford  thought  him  a 
wonderful  young  man,  but  wild,  &c. ;  and  he 
never  forgot  that  he  was  a  lord.  He  least  of 
all  forgot  it,  when  he  affected  to  play  the 
schoolmaster.  On  the  other  hand,  Lord  Byron 
was  happy  to  regard  Mr.  Gifford  as  a  wonder- 
ful old  gentleman,  not  indeed  a  born  gentle- 
man, but  the  more  honest  in  his  patricianisms 
on  that  account,  and  quite  a  born  critic; 
«  sound,"  as  the  saying  is  ;  learned  and  all  that, 
and  full  of  "  good  sense :"  in  short,  one  that 
was  very  sensible  of  his  Lordship's  merits, 
both  as  a  poet  and  a  peer,  and  who  had  the 


LORD    BYRON.  58 

art  of  making  his  homage  to  a  man  of  rank 
agreeable,  by  affecting  independence  without 
really  feeling  it.  Murray  he  laughed  at.  He 
treated  him  afterwards,  as  he  did  most  others, 
with  strange  alternations  of  spleen  and  good 
humour,  of  open  panegyric  and  secret  ridi- 
cule ;  but  at  the  period  in  question,  he  at  least 
thought  him  an  honest  man — for  "  the  tribe  of 
Barabbas ;"  who,  said  his  Lordship,  "  was  un- 
questionably a  bookseller."  Murray  affected 
to  patronize  him ;  and  with  a  simplicity  wor- 
thy of  Dominie  Sampson,  lamented  that  a 
young  man  with  such  advantages  should  go 
counter  in  opinion  to  the  King  and  his  minis- 
ters ;  otherwise,  said  he,  who  knows  but  what 
he  might  have  been  made  a  Viscount,  "  or 
even  an  Earl !"  *  Mr.  Murray  once  did  me 
the  honour,  in  a  stage-coach,  to  make  a  similar 
lamentation  with  regard  to  myself,  all  of  course 
in  due  proportion  to  my  rank  and  pretensions : 
but,  said  he,  "  there  is  Leigh  Hunt : — what 
does  he  mean  by  writing  on  the  side  of  reform 
and  that  kind  of  thing?  what  a  pity  he  did 

*  I  quote  on  the  authority  of  a  Quarterly  Reviewer. 


54  LORD    BYRON. 

not  come  to  us !  he  might  have  made  his  for- 
tune." "  Oh  but,"  said  a  person  present,  who 
happened  to  know  me,  "  his  principles  were 
against  it."  "  Principles  !''  exclaimed  Mr.  Mur- 
ray, foregoing  his  character  of  Dominie  Samp- 
son, and  with  all  the  airs  of  a  courtier  ;  "  Prin- 
ciples !"  as  if  he  had  never  heard  of  such 
things. 

The  courtiers  had  the  advantage  of  me  in 
one  particular.  They  knew  what  it  was  to  ad- 
mire lords  heartily,  and  they  could  see  that  I 
admired  them  more  than  I  suspected.  I  dedi- 
cated the  "  Story  of  Rimini"  to  Lord  Byron, 
and  the  dedication  was  a  foolish  one.  I  ad- 
dressed him,  as  at  the  beginning  of  a  letter,  and 
as  custom  allows  in  private  between  friends, 
without  his  title  ;  and  I  proceeded  to  show  how 
much  I  thought  of  his  rank,  by  pretending  to 
think  nothing  about  it.  My  critics  were  right 
so  far ;  but  they  were  wrong  in  thinking  that 
I  would  have  done  it  to  every  lord,  and  that 
very  romantic  feelings  were  not  mixed  up  with 
this  very  childish  mistake.  I  had  declined,  out 
of  a  notion  of  principle,  to  avail  myself  of 
more  than  one  opportunity  of  being  intimate 
with  men  of  rank  ;  opportunities  which,  it  will 


LORD    BYRON.  55 

easily  be  conceived,  are  no  very  uncommon 
things  in  the  life  of  a  journalist.  I  confess  I 
valued  myself  a  little  suspiciously  upon  my 
self-denial.  In  one  instance  I  had  reason  to 
do  so,  for  I  missed  the  company  of  a  man 
of  talents.  But  talents,  poetry,  similarity  of 
political  opinion,  the  flattery  of  early  sympa- 
thy with  my  boyish  writings,  more  flattering 
offers  of  friendship,  and  the  last  climax  of  flat- 
tery, an  earnest  waiving  of  his  rank,  were  too 
much  for  me  in  the  person  of  Lord  Byron ; 
and  I  took  out,  with  my  new  friend  as  I 
thought  him,  hearty  payment  for  my  philo- 
sophical abstinence.  TQbw  was  the  time,  I 
thought,  to  show,  that  friendship,  and  talents, 
and  poetry,  were  reckoned  superior  to  rank, 
even  by  rank  itself;  my  friend  appeared  not 
only  to  allow  me  to  think  so,  but  to  encourage 
me  to  do  it.  I  took  him  at  his  word  ;  and  I 
believe  he  was  as  much  astonished  at  it  (though 
nobody  could  have  expressed  himself  more 
kindly  to  me  on  the  subject*),  as  at  this  pre- 
sent writing  I  am  mortified  to  record  it. 

I  discovered  the  absurdity  I  had  committed, 

*  See  the  Correspondence. 


56  LORD    BY HON. 

long  before  I  went  to  Italy.  On  renewing  my 
intercourse  with  Lord  Byron,  I  made  up  my 
mind  to  put  myself  on  a  different  footing  with 
him,  but  in  such  a  manner  as  he  should  con- 
strue handsomely  towards  himself,  as  well  as 
respectfully  towards  me.  I  reckoned  upon  his 
approval  of  it,  because  it  should  be  done  as  a 
matter  of  course,  and  as  the  result  of  a  little 
more  experience  of  the  world,  and  not  out  of 
any  particular  observation  of  his  own  wishes 
or  inconsistencies :  and  I  reckoned  upon  it 
the  more  confidently,  because  at  the  time 
that  I  formed  the  resolution,  his  own  perso- 
nal character  was  not  so  much  in  my  thoughts 
as  that  conventional  modification  of  it  which 
lie  inherited  in  common  with  others  of  his 
rank,  and  of  which  it  was  not  to  be  expected 
he  should  get  rid.  Men  do  not  easily  give  up 
any  advantages  they  possess,  real  or  imagi- 
nary ;  and  they  have  a  good  deal  to  say  in 
their  favour, — I  mean,  as  far  as  any  real  dif- 
ference is  concerned  between  what  is  tangible 
in  substance  and  tangible  in  the  apprehension. 
If  a  man  can  be  made  happy  with  a  title,  I  do 
not  know  why  we  should  begrudge  it  him,  or 


LORD    BYRON.  57 

why  he  should  think  ill  of  it,  any  more  than 
of  beauty,  or  riches,  or  any  thing  else  that  has 
an  influence  upon  the  imagination.  The  only 
questions  are,  whether  he  will  be  the  better  for 
it  in  the  long  run ;  and  whether  his  particular 
good  is  harmless  or  otherwise  with  respect  to 
the  many.  Without  stopping  to  settle  this 
point,  I  had  concluded  that  Lord  Byron  had 
naturally  as  much  regard  for  his  title  as  any 
other  nobleman;  perhaps  more,  because  he  had 
professed  not  to  care  about  it.  Besides,  he 
had  a  poetical  imagination.  Mr.  Shelley,  who, 
though  he  had  not  known  him  longer,  had 
known  him  more  intimately,  was  punctilious 
in  giving  him  his  title,  and  told  me  very  plain- 
ly that  he  thought  it  best  for  all  parties.  His 
oldest  acquaintances,  it  is  true,  behaved  in  this 
respect,  as  it  is  the  custom  to  behave  in  great 
familiarity  of  intercourse.  Mr.  Shelley  did  not 
choose  to  be  so  familiar ;  and  he  thought, 
that  although  I  had  acted  differently  in  former 
times,  a  long  suspension  of  intercourse  would 
give  farther  warrant  to  a  change,  desirable  on 
many  accounts,  quite  unaffected,  and  intended 
to  be  acceptable.  I  took  care,  accordingly,  not 


58  LORD    BYRON. 

to  accompany  my  new  punctilio  with  any  air 
of  study  or  gravity.  In  every  other  respect 
things  appeared  the  same  as  before.  We 
laughed,  and  chatted,  and  rode  out,  and  were 
as  familiar  as  need  be  ;  and  I  thought  he  re- 
garded the  matter  just  as  I  wished.  However, 
he  did  not  like  it. 

This  may  require  some  explanation.  Lord 
Byron  was  very  proud  of  his  rank.  M.  Beyle 
("  Count  Stendhal"),  when  he  saw  him  at  the 
opera  in  Venice,  made  this  discovery  at  a 
glance ;  and  it  was  a  discovery  no  less  subtle 
than  true.  He  would  appear  sometimes  as 
jealous  of  his  title,  as  if  he  had  usurped  it.  A 
friend  told  me,  that  an  Italian  apothecary  ha- 
ving sent  him  one  day  a  packet  of  medicines, 
addressed  to  "  Mons.  Byron,"  this  mock-heroic 
mistake  aroused  his  indignation,  and  he  sent 
back  the  physic  to  learn  better  manners.  His 
coat  of  arms  was  fixed  up  in  front  of  his  bed. 
I  have  heard  that  it  was  a  joke  with  him  to 
mystify  the  sense  of  the  motto  to  his  fair 
friend,  who  wished  particularly  to  know  what 
"  Crede  Byron"  meant.  The  motto,  it  must 
be  acknowledged,  was  awkward.  The  version, 


LORD    BYRON.  59 

to  which  her  Italian  helped  her,  was  too  pro- 
vocative of  comment  to  be  allowed.  There 
are  mottoes,  as  well  as  scutcheons,  of  pretence, 
which  must  often  occasion  the  bearers  much 
taunt  and  sarcasm,  especially  from  indignant 
ladies.  Custom,  indeed,  and  the  interested  ac- 
quiescence of  society,  enable  us  to  be  proud 
of  imputed  merits,  though  we  contradict  them 
every  day  of  our  life  :  otherwise  it  would  be 
wonderful  how  people  could  adorn  their  equi- 
pages, and  be  continually  sealing  their  letters 
with  maxims  and  stately  moralities,  ludicrously 
inapplicable.  It  would  be  like  wearing  ironical 
papers  in  their  hats. 

But  Lord  Byron,  besides  being  a  lord,  was  a 
man  of  letters,  and  he  was  extremely  desirous  of 
the  approbation  of  men  of  letters.  He  loved  to 
enjoy  the  privileges  of  his  rank,  and  at  the  same 
time  to  be  thought  above  them.  It  is  true,  if  he 
thought  you  not  above  them  yourself,  he  was  the 
better  pleased.  On  this  account  among  others, 
no  man  was  calculated  to  delight  him  in  a  higher 
degree  than  Thomas  Moore ;  who  with  every 
charm  he  wished  for  in  a  companion,  and  a 
reputation  for  independence  and  liberal  opinion, 


60  LORD    BYROX. 

admired  both  genius  and  title  for  their  own 
sakes.  But  his  Lordship  did  not  always  feel 
quite  secure  of  the  bon-mots  of  his  brother  wit. 
His  conscience  had  taught  him  suspicion  ;  and 
it  was  a  fault  with  him  and  his  coterie,  as  it  is 
with  most,  that  they  all  talked  too  much  of  one 
another  behind  their  backs.  But  "  admiration 
at  all  events"  was  his  real  motto.  If  he  thought 
you  an  admirer  of  titles,  he  was  well  pleased 
that  you  should  add  that  homage  to  the  other, 
without  investigating  it  too  nicely.  If  not, 
he  was  anxious  that  you  should  not  suppose 
him  anxious  about  the  matter.  When  he 
beheld  me,  therefore,  in  the  first  instance,  ta- 
king such  pains  to  show  my  philosophy,  he 
knew  very  well  that  he  was  secure,  address 
him  as  I  might ;  but  now  that  he  found  me 
grown  older,  and  suspected  from  my  general 
opinions  and  way  of  life,  that  my  experience, 
though  it  adopted  the  style  of  the  world  when 
mixing  with  it,  partook  less  of  it  than  ever  in 
some  respects,  he  was  chagrined  at  this  change 
in  my  appellatives.  He  did  not  feel  so  at 
once ;  but  the  more  we  associated,  and  the 


LORD   BYRON.  6l 

greater  insight  he  obtained  into  the  tranquil 
and  unaffected  conclusions  I  had  come  to  on 
a  great  many  points,  upon  which  he   was  de- 
sirous of  being  thought  as  indifferent  as  my- 
self, the  less  satisfied  he  became  with  it.     At 
last,   thinking  I  had   ceased   to   esteem   him, 
he  petulantly  bantered  me  on  the  subject.     I 
knew,  in  fact,  that  under  all  the  circumstances, 
neither  of  us  could  afford  a  change  back  again 
to  the  old  entire  familiarity ;  he,  because  he 
would  have  regarded  it  as  a  triumph  warrant- 
ing very   peculiar   consequences,  and  such  as 
would  by  no  means  have  saved  me  from  the 
penalties  of  the  previous  offence ;  and  I,  be- 
cause I  was  under  certain  disadvantages,  that 
would  not  allow  me  to  indulge  him.     With 
any  other  man,  I  would  not  have  stood  it  out. 
It  would  have  ill  become  the  very  sincerity  of 
my  feelings.     But  even  the  genius   of  Lord 
Byron  did  not  enable  him  to  afford  being  con- 
ceded to.     He  was  so  annoyed  one  day  at  Ge- 
noa at  not  succeeding  in  bantering  me  out  of 
my  epistolary  proprieties,  that  he  addressed  me 
a  letter  beginning,  "  Dear  Lord  Hunt."     This 


62  LORD    BYRON. 

sally  made  me  laugh  heartily.  I  told  him 
so  ;  and  my  unequivocal  relish  of  the  joke  paci- 
fied him  ;  so  that  I  heard  no  more  on  the  subject. 
The  familiarities  of  my  noble  acquaintance, 
which  I  had  taken  at  first  for  a  compliment 
and  a  cordiality,  were  dealt  out  in  equal  por- 
tions to  all  who  came  near  him.  They  pro- 
ceeded upon  that  royal  instinct  of  an  immea- 
surable distance  between  the  parties,  the  safety 
of  which,  it  is  thought,  can  be  compromised 
by  no  appearance  of  encouragement.  The  far- 
ther you  are  off,  the  more  securely  the  per- 
sonage may  indulge  your  good  opinion  of  him. 
The  greater  his  merits,  and  the  more  transport- 
ing his  condescension,  the  less  can  you  be  so 
immodest  as  to  have  pretensions  of  your  own. 
You  may  be  intoxicated  into  familiarity.  That 
is  excusable,  though  not  desirable.  But  not 
to  be  intoxicated  any  how, — not  to  show  any 
levity,  and  yet  not  to  be  possessed  with  a  se- 
riousness of  the  pleasure,  is  an  offence.  When 
I  agreed  to  go  to  Italy  and  join  in  setting  up 
the  proposed  work,  Shelley,  who  was  fond  of 
giving  his  friends  appellations,  happened  to  be 


LORD    BYRON.  63 

talking  one  day  with  Lord  Byron  of  the  mysti- 
fication which  the  name  of  "  Leigh  Hunt" 
would  cause  the  Italians ;  and  passing  from  one 
fancy  to  another,  he  proposed  that  they  should 
translate  it  into  Leontius.  Lord  Byron  ap- 
proved of  this  conceit,  and  at  Pisa  was  in  the 
habit  of  calling  me  so.  I  liked  it ;  especially 
as  it  seemed  a  kind  of  new  link  with  my 
beloved  friend,  then,  alas  !  no  more.  I  was 
pleased  to  be  called  in  Italy,  what  he  would 
have  called  me  there  had  he  been  alive :  and 
the  familiarity  was  welcome  to  me  from  Lord 
Byron's  mouth,  partly  because  it  pleased  him- 
self, partly  because  it  was  not  of  a  worldly 
fashion,  and  the  link  with  my  friend  was  thus 
rendered  compatible.  In  fact,  had  Lord  Byron 
been  what  I  used  to  think  him,  he  might  have 
called  me  what  he  chose ;  and  I  should  have 
been  as  proud  to  be  at  his  call,  as  I  endeavour- 
ed to  be  pleased.  As  it  was,  there  was  some- 
thing not  unsocial  nor  even  unenjoying  in  our 
intercourse,  nor  was  there  any  appearance  of 
constraint ;  but,  upon  the  whole,  it  was  not 
pleasant :  it  was  not  cordial.  There  was  a  sense 


64  LORD    BYRON. 

of  mistake  on  both  sides,  However,  this  came 
by  degrees.  At  first  there  was  hope,  which  I 
tried  hard  to  indulge ;  and  there  was  always 
some  joking  going  forward  ;  some  melancholy 
mirth,  which  a  spectator  might  have  taken  for 
pleasure. 

Our  manner  of  life  was  this.  Lord  Byron, 
who  used  to  sit  up  at  night,  writing  Don  Juan 
(which  he  did  under  the  influence  of  gin  and 
water),  rose  late  in  the  morning.  He  break- 
fasted ;  read ;  lounged  about,  singing  an  air, 
generally  out  of  Rossini,  and  in  a  swaggering 
style,  though  in  a  voice  at  once  small  and  veil- 
ed ;  then  took  a  bath,  and  was  dressed ;  and 
coming  down-stairs,  was  heard,  stih1  singing,  in 
the  court-yard,  out  of  which  the  garden  ascend- 
ed at  the  back  of  the  house.  The  servants  at 
the  same  time  brought  out  two  or  three  chairs. 
My  study,  a  little  room  in  a  corner,  with  an 
orange-tree  peeping  in  at  the  window,  looked 
upon  this  court-yard.  I  was  generally  at  my 
writing  when  he  came  down,  and  either  ac- 
knowledged his  presence  by  getting  up  and 
saying  something  from  the  window,  or  he 
called  out  "  Leontius !"  and  came  halting  up 


LORD    BYRON.  65 

to  the  window  with  some  joke,  or  other  chal- 
lenge to  conversation.  (Readers  of  good  sense 
will  do  me  the  justice  of  discerning  where  any 
thing  is  spoken  of  in  a  tone  of  objection,  and 
where  it  is  only  brought  in  as  requisite  to  the 
truth  of  the  picture.)  His  dress,  as  at  Monte- 
Nero,  was  a  nankin  jacket,  with  white  waist- 
coat and  trowsers,  and  a  cap,  either  velvet  or 
linen,  with  a  shade  to  it.  In  his  hand  was  a 
tobacco-box,  from  which  he  helped  himself  like 
unto  a  shipman,  but  for  a  different  purpose ; 
his  object  being  to  restrain  the  pinguifying  im- 
pulses of  hunger.  Perhaps  also  he  thought  it 
good  for  the  teeth.  We  then  lounged  about, 
or  sat  and  talked,  Madame  Guiccioli  with  her 
sleek  tresses  descending  after  her  toilet  to  join 
us.  The  garden  was  small  and  square,  but 
plentifully  stocked  with  oranges  and  other 
shrubs ;  and,  being  well  watered,  looked  very 
green  and  refreshing  under  the  Italian  sky. 
The  lady  generally  attracted  us  up  into  it,  if 
we  had  not  been  there  before.  Her  appearance 
might  have  reminded  an  English  spectator  of 
Chaucer's  heroine — 

VOL.  I.  F 


66  LORD    BYRON. 

"  Yclothed  was  she,  fresh  for  to  devise. 
Her  yellow  hair  was  braided  in  a  tress 
Behind  her  back,  a  yarde  long,  I  guess  : 
And  in  the  garden  (as  the  sun  uprist) 
She  walketh  up  and  down,  where  as  her  list :" 

And  then,  as  Dryden  has  it : 

"  At  every  turn  she  made  a  little  stand, 
And  thrust  among  the  thorns  her  lily  hand." 

Madame  Guiccioli,  who  was  at  that  time  about 
twenty,  was  handsome  and  lady-like,  with  an 
agreeable  manner,  and  a  voice  not  partaking 
too  much  of  the  Italian  fervour  to  be  gentle. 
She  had  just  enough  of  it  to  give  her  speaking 
a  grace.  None  of  her  graces  appeared  entirely 
free  from  art ;  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  did  they 
betray  enough  of  it  to  give  you  an  ill  opinion 
of  her  sincerity  and  good-humour.  I  was  told, 
that  her  Romagnese  dialect  was  observable ;  but 
to  me,  at  that  time,  all  Italian  in  a  lady's  mouth 
was  Tuscan  pearl ;  and  she  trolled  it  over  her 
lip,  pure  or  not,  with  that  sort  of  conscious 
grace,  which  seems  to  belong  to  the  Italian 
language  as  a  matter  of  right.  I  amused  her 
with  speaking  bad  Italian  out  of  Ariosto,  and 
saying  speme  for  spercmza ;  in  which  she  good- 


' 


THE  COUNTESS  GUlCCIOJLI 


LORD    BYRON.  67 

naturedly  found  something  pleasant  and  pelle- 
grino;  keeping  all  the  while  that  considerate 
countenance,  for  which  a  foreigner  has  so  much 
reason  to  be  grateful.  Her  hair  was  what  the 
poet  has  described,  or  rather  blond,  with  an  in- 
clination to  yellow ;  a  very  fair  and  delicate  yel- 
low at  all  events,  and  within  the  limits  of  the 
poetical.  She  had  regular  features,  of  the  order 
properly  called  handsome,  in  distinction  to  pret- 
tiness  or  to  piquancy  ;  being  well  proportioned 
to  one  another,  large  rather  than  otherwise,  but 
without  coarseness,  and  more  harmonious  than 
interesting.  Her  nose  was  the  handsomest  of 
the  kind  I  ever  saw ;  and  I  have  known  her 
both  smile  very  sweetly,  and  look  intelligently, 
when  Lord  Byron  has  said  something  kind  to 
her.  I  should  not  say,  however,  that  she  was  a 
very  intelligent  person.  Both  her  wisdom  and 
her  want  of  wisdom  were  on  the  side  of  her 
feelings,  in  which  there  was  doubtless  mingled 
a  good  deal  of  the  self-love  natural  to  a  flat- 
tered beauty.  She  wrote  letters  in  the  style  of 
the  "  Academy  of  Compliments ;"  and  made 
plentiful  use,  at  all  times,  of  those  substitutes 
for  address  and  discourse,  which  flourished  in 
F  2 


68  LORD    BYRON. 

England  at  the  era  of  that  polite  compilation, 
and  are  still  in  full  bloom  in  Italy. 

"  And  evermore 
She  strewed  a  mi  rallegro  after  and  before." 

In  a  word,  Madame  Guiccioli  was  a  kind 
of  buxom  parlour-boarder,  compressing  herself 
artificially  into  dignity  and  elegance,  and 
fancying  she  walked,  in  the  eyes  of  the  whole 
world,  a  heroine  by  the  side  of  a  poet.  When 
I  saw  her  at  Monte-Nero,  she  was  in  a  state 
of  excitement  and  exaltation,  and  had  really 
something  of  this  look.  At  that  time  also  she 
looked  no  older  than  she  was ;  in  which  respect 
a  rapid  and  very  singular  change  took  place, 
to  the  surprise  of  every  body.  In  the  course 
of  a  few  months  she  seemed  to  have  lived  as 
many  years.  It  was  most  likely  in  that  inter- 
val that  she  discovered  she  had  no  real  hold  on 
the  affections  of  her  companion.  The  portrait 
of  her  by  Mr.  West, 

"  In  Magdalen's  loose  hair  and  lifted  eye/' 

is  flattering  upon  the  whole ;  has  a  look  of 
greater  delicacy  than  she  possessed ;  but  it  is 
also  very  like,  and  the  studied  pretension  of 
the  attitude  has  a  moral  resemblance.  Being 


LORD    BYRON.  69 

a  half-length,  it  shows  her  to  advantage ;  for 
the  fault  of  her  person  was,  that  her  head  and 
bust   were  hardly  sustained  by  limbs  of  suffi- 
cient length.     I  take  her  to  have  been  a  good- 
hearted  zealous  person,  capable  of  being  very 
natural  if  she  had  been  thrown  into  natural 
circumstances,  and  able  to  show  a  companion, 
whom  she  was  proud  of,  that  good-humoured 
and  grateful  attachment,  which  the  most  bril- 
liant men,   if  they  were  wise  enough,  would 
be  as  happy  to  secure,  as  a  corner  in  Elysium. 
But  the  greater  and  more  selfish  the  vanity, 
the  less  will  it  tolerate  the  smallest  portion  of 
it  in  another.     Lord  Byron  saw,  in  the  attach- 
ment of  any  female,   nothing   but   what  the 
whole  sex  were  prepared  to  entertain  for  him  ; 
and  instead  of  allowing  himself  to  love  and  be 
beloved   for    the  qualities  which  can  only  be 
realized  upon  intimacy,  and  which  are  the  only 
securers  at  last  of  all  attachment,  whether  for 
the  illustrious  or  the  obscure,  he  gave  up  his 
comfort,  out  of  a  wretched  compliment  to  his 
self-love.      He   enabled    this  adoring    sex   to 
discover,  that   a  great  man  might  be  a  very 
small  one.     It  must  be  owned,   however,   as 


70  LORD    BYRON. 

the  reader  will  see  presently,  that  Madame 
Guiccioli  did  not  in  the  least  know  how  to  ma- 
nage him,  when  he  was  wrong. 

The  effect  of  these  and  the  other  faults  in 
his  Lordship's  character  was  similar,  in  its  pro- 
portion, upon  all  who  chanced  to  come  within 
his  sphere.  Let  the  reader  present  to  his 
imagination  the  noble  poet  and  any  intimate 
acquaintance  (not  a  mere  man  of  the  world) 
living  together.  He  must  fancy  them,  by 
very  speedy  degrees,  doubting  and  differing 
with  one  another,  how  quietly  soever,  and  pro- 
ducing such  a  painful  sense  of  something  not 
to  be  esteemed  on  one  side,  and  something  tor- 
mented between  the  wish  not  to  show  it  and 
the  impossibility  of  not  feeling  it  on  the  other, 
that  separation  becomes  inevitable.  It  has 
been  said  in  a  magazine,  that  I  was  always 
arguing  with  Lord  Byron.  Nothing  can  be 
more  untrue.  I  was  indeed  almost  always  dif- 
fering, and  to  such  a  degree,  that  I  was  fain  to 
keep  the  difference  to  myself.  I  differed  so 
much,  that  I  argued  as  little  as  possible.  His 
Lordship  was  so  poor  a  logician,  that  he  did 
not  even  provoke  argument.  When  you 


LORD   BYRON.  71 

openly  differed  with  him,  in  any  thing  like 
a  zealous  manner,  the  provocation  was  caused 
by  something  foreign  to  reasoning,  and  not 
pretending  to  it.  He  did  not  care  for  argu- 
ment, and,  what  is  worse,  was  too  easily  con- 
vinced at  the  moment,  or  appeared  to  be  so, 
to  give  any  zest  to  disputation.  He  gravely 
asked  me  one  day,  "  What  it  was  that  con- 
vinced me  in  argument  ?"  I  said,  I  thought 
I  was  convinced  by  the  strongest  reasoning. 
"  For  my  part,"  said  he,  "  it  is  the  last  speaker 
that  convinces  me."  And  I  believe  he  spoke 
truly  ;  but  then  he  was  only  convinced,  till 
it  was  agreeable  to  him  to  be  moved  otherwise. 
He  did  not  care  for  the  truth.  He  admired 
only  the  convenient  and  the  ornamental.  He 
was  moved  to  and  fro,  not  because  there  was 
any  ultimate  purpose  which  he  would  give  up, 
but  solely  because  it  was  most  troublesome  to 
him  to  sit  still  and  resist.  "  Mobility,"  he  has 
said,  in  one  of  his  notes  to  "  Don  Juan,"  was 
his  weakness  ;  and  he  calls  it  "  a  very  painful 
attribute."  It  is  an  attribute  certainly  not  very 
godlike;  but  it  still  left  him  as  self-centered 
and  unsympathising  with  his  movers,  as  if  he 


72  LOIID    BYRON. 

had  been  a  statue  or  a  ball.  In  this  respect 
he  was  as  totus  teres  atque  rotundus,  as  Mr. 
Hazlitt  could  desire;  and  thus  it  was,  that  he 
was  rolled  out  of  Mr.  Hazlitt's  own  company 
and  the  Liberal. 

I  shall  come  to  that  matter  presently.  Mean- 
while, to  return  to  our  mode  of  life.  In  the 
course  of  an  hour  or  two,  being  an  early  riser, 
I  used  to  go  in  to  dinner.  Lord  Byron  either 
stayed  a  little  longer,  or  went  up  stairs  to  his 
books  and  his  couch.  When  the  heat  of  the 
day  declined,  we  rode  out,  either  on  horseback 
or  in  a  barouche,  generally  towards  the  forest. 
He  was  a  good  rider,  graceful,  and  kept  a  firm 
seat.  He  loved  to  be  told  of  it;  and  being 
true,  it  was  a  pleasure  to  tell  him.  Good 
/  God  !  what  homage  might  not  that  man  have 
\  received,  and  what  love  and  pleasure  recipro- 
cated, if  he  could  have  been  content  with  the 
truth,  and  had  truth  enough  of  his  own  to 
V  think  a  little  better  of  his  fellow-creatures  ! 
But  he  was  always  seeking  for  uneasy  sources 
of  satisfaction.  The  first  day  we  were  going 
out  on  horseback  together,  he  was  joking  upon 
the  bad  riding  of  this  and  that  acquaintance  of 


LOUD    BYRON.  73 

his.  He  evidently  hoped  to  have  the  pleasure 
of  adding  me  to  the  list ;  and  finding,  when 
we  pushed  forward,  that  there  was  nothing  par- 
ticular in  the  spectacle  of  my  horsemanship, 
he  said  in  a  tone  of  disappointment,  "  Why, 
Hunt,  you  ride  very  well !"  Trelawney  some- 
times went  with  us,  on  a  great  horse,  smoking 
a  cigar.  We  had  blue  frock-coats,  white  waist- 
coats and  trowsers,  and  velvet  caps  a  la  Ra- 
phael; and  cut  a  gallant  figure.  Sometimes 
we  went  as  far  as  a  vineyard,  where  he  had 
been  accustomed  to  shoot  at  a  mark,  and  where 
the  brunette  lived,  who  came  into  his  drawing- 
room  with  the  basket  of  flowers.  The  father 
was  an  honest-looking  man,  who  was  in  trouble 
with  his  landlord,  and  heaved  great  sighs  ;  the 
mother  a  loud  swarthy  woman,  with  hard  lines 
in  her  face.  There  was  a  little  sister,  delicate- 
looking  and  melancholy,  very  different  from 
the  confident  though  not  unpleasing  counte- 
nance of  the  elder,  who  was  more  handsome. 
They  all,  however,  seemed  good-humoured. 
We  sat  under  an  arbour,  and  had  figs  served 
up  to  us,  the  mother  being  loud  in  our  faces, 
and  cutting  some  extraordinary  jokes,  which 


74  LORD    BYKON. 

made   me   any  thing  but   merry.     Upon  the 
whole,  I  was  glad  to  come  away. 

Madame  Guiccioli  was  very  curious  on  these 
occasions,  but  could  get  no  information.  Un- 
fortunately, she  could  not  see  beyond  a  com- 
monplace of  any  sort,  nor  put  up  with  a 
distressing  one  in  the  hope  of  doing  it  away. 
The  worst  thing  she  did  (and  which  showed  to 
every  body  else,  though  not  to  herself,  that 
she  entertained  no  real  love  for  Lord  Byron) 
was  to  indulge  in  vehement  complaints  of  him 
to  his  acquaintances.  The  first  time  she  did 
so  to  me,  I  shocked  her  so  excessively  with 
endeavouring  to  pay  a  compliment  to  her  un- 
derstanding, and  leading  her  into  a  more  gene- 
rous policy,  that  she  never  made  me  her  con- 
fidant again.  "No  wonder,"  she  said,  "that 
my  Lord  was  so  bad,  when  he  had  friends 
who  could  talk  so  shockingly."  "  Oh,  Shelley!" 
thought  I,  "  see  what  your  friend  has  come  to 
with  the  sentimental  Italian  whom  he  was  to 
assist  in  reforming  our  Don  Juan !"  When 
Lord  Byron  talked  freely  to  her  before  others, 
she  was  not  affected  by  what  would  have 
startled  a  delicate  Englishwoman,  (a  com- 


LOUD   BYRON.  75 

mon  Italian  defect),  but  when  he  alluded  to 
any  thing  more  pardonable,  she  would  get 
angry,  and  remonstrate,  and  "  wonder  at  him ;" 
he  all  the  while  looking  as  if  he  enjoyed  her 
vehemence,  and  did  not  believe  a  word  of  it. 
A  delicate  lover  would  have  spared  her  this, 
and  at  the  same  time  have  elevated  her  notions 
of  the  behaviour  suitable  for  such  occasions; 
but  her  own  understanding  did  not  inform  her 
any  better ;  and  in  this  respect  I  doubt  whe- 
ther Lord  Byron's  could  have  supplied  it ;  what 
is  called  sentiment  having  been  so  completely 
taken  out  of  him  by  ill  company  and  the  world. 
Of  an  evening  I  seldom  saw  him.  He  re- 
created himself  in  the  balcony,  or  with  a  book ; 
and  at  night,  when  I  went  to  bed,  he  was  just 
thinking  of  setting  to  work  with  Don  Juan. 
His  favourite  reading  was  history  and  travels. 
I  think  I  am  correct  in  saying  that  his  favou- 
rite authors  were  Bayle  and  Gibbon.  Gib- 
bon was  altogether  a  writer  calculated  to  please 
him.  There  was  a  show  in  him,  and  at  the 
same  time  a  tone  of  the  world,  a  self-compla- 
cency and  a  sarcasm,  a  love  of  things  aristo- 
cratical,  with  a  tendency  to  be  liberal  on  other 


76  LORD    BYRON. 

points  of  opinion,  and  to  crown  all,  a  splendid 
success  in  authorship,  and  a  high  and  piquant 
character  with  the  fashionable  world,  which 
found  a  strong  sympathy  in  the  bosom  of  his 
noble  reader.  Then,  in  his  private  life,  Gibbon 
was  a  voluptuous  recluse ;  he  had  given  cele- 
brity to  a  foreign  residence,  possessed  a  due 
sense  of  the  merits  of  wealth  as  well  as  rank, 
and  last,  perhaps  not  least,  was  no  speaker  in 
Parliament.  I  may  add,  that  the  elaborate 
style  of  his  writing  pleased  the  lover  of  the 
artificial  in  poetry,  while  the  cynical  turn  of 
his  satire  amused  the  genius  of  Don  Juan. 
And  finally,  his  learning  and  research  supplied 
the  indolent  man  of  letters  with  the  informa- 
tion which  he  had  left  at  school. 

Lord  Byron's  collection  of  books  was  poor, 
and  consisted  chiefly  of  new  ones.  I  remem- 
ber little  among  them  but  the  English  works 
published  at  Basle,  (Kames,  Robertson,  Wat- 
son's History  of  Philip  II.  &c.)  and  new  ones 
occasionally  sent  him  from  England.  He  was 
anxious  to  show  you  that  he  possessed  no  Shak- 
speare  and  Milton ;  "  because,"  he  said,  "  he 
had  been  accused  of  borrowing  from  them  !" 


LOUD    BYRON.  77 

He  affected  to  doubt  whether  Shakspeare  was 
so  great  a  genius  as  he  has  been  taken  for,  and 
whether  fashion  had  not  a  great  deal  to  do  with 
it ;  an  extravagance,  of  which  none  but  a  pa- 
trician author  could  have  been  guilty.  How- 
ever, there  was  a  greater  committal  of  himself 
at  the  bottom  of  this  notion  than  he  supposed ; 
and,  perhaps,  circumstances  had  really  disen- 
abled him  from  having  the  proper  idea  of 
Shakspeare,  though  it  could  not  have  fallen  so 
short  of  the  truth  as  he  pretended.  Spenser 
he  could  not  read ;  at  least  he  said  so.  All 
the  gusto  of  that  most  poetical  of  the  poets 
went  with  him  for  nothing.  I  lent  him  a  vo- 
lume of  the  "  Fairy  Queen,"  and  he  said  he 
would  try  to  like  it.  Next  day  he  brought  it 
to  my  study-window,  and  said,  "  Here,  Hunt, 
here  is  your  Spenser.  I  cannot  see  any  thing 
in  him :"  and  he  seemed  anxious  that  I  should 
take  it  out  of  his  hands,  as  if  he  was  afraid 
of  being  accused  of  copying  so  poor  a  -writer. 
That  he  saw  nothing  in  Spenser  is  not  very 
likely  ;  but  I  really  do  not  think  that  he  saw 
much.  Spenser  was  too  much  out  of  the 
world,  and  he  too  much  in  it.  It  would  have 


78  LORD    BY11ON. 

been  impossible  to  persuade  him,  that  Sandys's 
Ovid  was  better  than  Addison's  and  Croxall's. 
He  wanted  faith  in  the  interior  of  poetry,  to 
relish  it,  unpruned  and  unpopular.  Besides, 
he  himself  was  to  be  mixed  up  somehow 
with  every  thing,  whether  to  approve  it  or  dis- 
approve. When  he  found  Sandys's  "  Ovid " 
among  my  books,  he  said,  "  God !  what  an  un- 
pleasant recollection  I  have  of  this  book !  I 
met  with  it  on  my  wedding-day ;  I  read  it 
while  I  was  waiting  to  go  to  church."  Sandys, 
who  is  any  thing  but  an  anti-bridal  poet,  was 
thenceforward  to  be  nobody  but  an  old  fellow 
who  had  given  him  an  unpleasant  sensation . 
The  only  great  writer  of  past  times,  whom 
he  read  with  avowed  satisfaction,  was  Mon- 
taigne, as  the  reader  may  see  by  an  article  in 
the  "  New  Monthly  Magazine."  In  the  same 
article  may  be  seen  the  reasons  why,  and 
the  passages  that  he  marked  in  that  author. 
Franklin  he  liked.  He  respected  him  for  his 
acquisition  of  wealth  and  power;  and  would 
have  stood  in  awe,  had  he  known  him,  of  the 
refined  worldliness  of  his  character,  and  the 
influence  it  gave  him.  Franklin's  Works,  and 


LORD   BYRON.  79 

Walter  Scott's,  were  among  his  favourite  read- 
ing. His  liking  for  such  of  the  modern  au- 
thors as  he  preferred  in  general,  was  not  found- 
ed in  a  compliment  to  them  ;  but  Walter  Scott, 
with  his  novels,  his  fashionable  repute,  and  his 
ill  opinion  of  the  world  whom  he  fell  in  with, 
enabled  him  to  enter  heartily  into  his  merits ; 
and  he  read  him  over  and  over  again  with  un- 
affected delight.  Sir  Walter  was  his  corre- 
spondent, -and  appears  to  have  returned  the 
regard ;  though,  if  I  remember,  the  dedication 
of  "  The  Mystery"  frightened  him.  They  did 
not  hold  each  other  in  the  less  estimation,  the 
one  for  being  a  lord,  and  the  other  a  lover  of 
lords  :  neither  did  Sir  Walter's  connexion  with 
the  calumniating  press  of  Edinburgh  at  all 
shock  his  noble  friend.  It  added  rather  "a 
fearful  joy "  to  his  esteem ;  carrying  with  it 
a  look  of  something  "  bloody,  bold,  and  reso- 
lute:" at  the  same  time,  more  resolute  than 
bold,  and  more  death-dealing  than  either ; — 
a  sort  of  available  other-man's  weapon,  which 
increased  the  sum  of  his  power,  and  was  a  set- 
off  against  his  character  for  virtue, 

The  first  number  of  the  Liberal  was   now 


80  LORD    BYRON. 

on  the  anvil,  and  Mr.  Shelley's  death  had  given 
me  a  new  uneasiness.  The  reader  will  see  in 
Mr.  Shelley's  Letters,  that  Lord  Byron  had  ori- 
ginally proposed  a  work  of  the  kind  to  Mr. 
Moore ;  at  least,  a  periodical  work  of  some 
sort,  which  they  were  jointly  to  write.  Mr. 
Moore  doubted  the  beatitude  of  such  divided 
light,  and  declined  it.  His  Lordship  then 
proposed  it  through  Mr.  Shelley  to  me.  I 
wrote  to  both  of  them  to  say,  that  I  should  be 
happy  to  take  such  an  opportunity  of  restoring 
the  fortunes  of  a  battered  race  of  patriots  ;  and 
as  soon  as  we  met  in  Pisa,  it  was  agreed  that 
the  work  should  be  political,  and  assist  in  car- 
rying on  the  good  cause.  The  title  of  Libe- 
ral was  given  it  by  Lord  Byron.  We  were  to 
share  equally  the  profits,  the  work  being 
printed  and  published  by  my  brother ;  and  it 
was  confidently  anticipated  that  money  would 
pour  in  upon  all  of  us. 

Enemies  however,  had  been  already  at  work. 
Lord  Byron  was  alarmed  for  his  credit  with 
his  fashionable  friends  :  among  whom,  although 
on  the  liberal  side,  patriotism  was  less  in  fa- 
vour, than  the  talk  about  it.  This  man  wrote 


LORI)    BYRON.  81 

to  him,  and  that  wrote,  and  another  came.  Mr. 
Hobhouse  rushed  over  the  Alps,  not  knowing 
which  was  the  more  awful,  the  mountains,  or 
the  Magazine.  Mr.  Murray  wondered,  Mr. 
Gifford  smiled,  (a  lofty  symptom !)  and  Mr. 
Moore  (tu  quoque,  Horati!)  said  that  the  Libe- 
ral had  "  a  taint"  in  it !  This  however  was  af- 
terwards. But  Lord  Byron,  who  was  as  fond 
as  a  footman  of  communicating  unpleasant 
intelligence,  told  us  from  the  first,  that  his 
"  friends"  had  all  been  at  him  ;  friends,  whom 
he  afterwards  told  me  he  had  "  libelled  all 
round,"  and  whom  (to  judge  of  what  he 
did  by  some  of  them)  he  continued  to  treat 
in  the  same  impartial  manner.  He  surprised 
my  friend,  Mr.  Brown,  at  Pisa,  by  volun- 
teering a  gossip  on  this  matter,  in  the  course 
of  which  he  drew  a  comparison  between  me 
and  one  of  his  "  friends,"  to  whom,  he  said,  he 
had  been  accused  of  preferring  me ;  "  and," 
added  he,  with  an  air  of  warmth,  "  so  I  do." 
The  meaning  of  this  was,  that  the  person  in 
question  was  out  of  favour  at  the  moment,  and 
I  was  in.  Next  day  the  tables  may  have  been 
turned.  I  met  Mr.  Hobhouse  soon  after  in  the 

VOL.  I.  G 


82  LOKD    BYRON. 

Casa  Lanfranchi.  He  was  very  polite  and 
complimentary;  and  then,  if  his  noble  friend 
was  to  be  believed,  did  all  he  could  to  destroy 
the  connexion  between  us.  One  of  the  argu- 
ments used  by  the  remonstrants  with  his  Lord- 
ship was,  that  the  connexion  was  not  "  gentle- 
manly ;"  a  representation  which  he  professed 
to  treat  with  great  scorn,  whether  birth  or  man- 
ners were  concerned;  and  I  will  add,  that  he 
had  reason  to  do  so.  It  was  a  ridiculous  as- 
sumption, which,  like  all  things  of  that  sort, 
was  to  tell  upon  the  mere  strength  of  its  being 
one.  The  manners  of  such  of  his  Lordship's 
friends  as  I  ever  happened  to  meet  with,  were, 
in  fact,  with  one  exception,  nothing  superior 
to  their  birth,  if  two  such  unequal  things  may 
be  put  on  a  level.  It  is  remarkable  (and,  in- 
deed, may  account  for  the  cry  about  gentility, 
which  none  are  so  given  to  as  the  vulgar,) 
that  they  were  almost  all  persons  of  humble 
origin ;  one  of  a  race  of  booksellers  ;  another 
the  son  of  a  grocer  ;  another,  of  a  glazier ;  and 
a  fourth,  though  the  son  of  a  baronet,  the 
grandson  of  a  linen-draper.  Readers  who 
know  any  thing  of  me,  or  such  as  I  care  to 


LORD    BY HON.  83 

be  known  by,  will  not  suspect  me  of  under- 
valuing tradesmen  or  the  sons  of  tradesmen, 
who  may  be,  and  very  often  are,  both  as  gen- 
tlemanly and  accomplished  as  any  men  in  Eng- 
land. It  did  not  require  the  Frenchman's  dis- 
covery, (that,  at  a  certain  remove,  every  body 
is  related  to  every  body  else,)  to  make  a  man 
think  sensibly  on  this  point  now-a-days.  Pope 
was  a  linen-draper's  son,  and  Cowley  a  grocer's. 
Who  would  be  coxcomb  enough  to  venture 
to  think  the  worse  on  that  account  of  either 
of  those  illustrious  men,  whether  for  wit  or 
gentility ;  and  both  were  gentlemen  as  well 
as  wits.  But  when  persons  bring  a  charge 
upon  things  indifferent,  which,  if  it  attaches 
at  all,  attaches  to  none  but  themselves  who 
make  it,  the  thing  indifferent  becomes  a  thing 
ridiculous.  Mr.  Shelley,  a  baronet's  son,  was 
also  of  an  old  family :  and,  as  to  his  manners, 
though  they  were  in  general  those  of  a  recluse, 
and  of  an  invalid  occupied  with  his  thoughts, 
they  were  any  thing  but  vulgar.  They  could 
be,  if  he  pleased,  in  the  most  received  style  of 
his  rank.  He  was  not  incapable,  when  pes- 
tered with  moral  vulgarity,  of  assuming  even 

G  2 


84  LORD    BYROX, 

an  air  of  aristocratic  pride  and  remoteness. 
Some  of  Lord  Byron's  friends  would  have 
given  him  occasion  for  this  twenty  times  in 
a  day.  They  did  wisely  to  keep  out  of  his 
way.  As  to  my  birth,  the  reader  may  see 
what  it  was  in  another  part  of  the  volume; 
and  my  manners  I  leave  him  to  construe  kind- 
ly or  otherwise,  according  to  his  own. 

There  is  nothing  on  the  part  of  others,  from 
which  I  have  suffered  so  much  in  the  course  of 
my  life,  as  reserve  and  disingenuousness.  Had 
Lord  Byron,  incontinent  in  every  thing  else, 
told  me  at  once,  that  in  case  it  did  not  bring 
him  an  influx  of  wealth,  he  could  not  find  it 
in  his  heart  to  persist  in  what  was  objected  to 
by  a  coterie  on  the  town, — or  had  his  friends, 
whom  he  "  libelled  all  round,"  and  some  of 
whom  returned  him  the  compliment,  been  ca- 
pable of  paying  me  or  themselves  the  com- 
pliment of  being  a  little  sincere  with  me,  and 
showing  me  any  reasons  for  supposing  that 
the  work  would  be  injurious  to  Lord  Byron 
(for  I  will  imagine,  for  the  sake  of  argument, 
that  such  might  have  been  the  case),  I  should 
have  put  an  end  to  the  design  at  once.  As  it 


LOUD    BYRON.  85 

was,  though  his  Lordship  gave  in  before  long, 
and  had  undoubtedly  made  up  his  mind  to  do 
so  long  before  he  announced  it,  yet  not  only 
did  the  immediate  influence  prevail  at  first  over 
the  remoter  one,   but  it  is  a  mistake  to  sup- 
pose that  he  was  not  mainly  influenced  by  the 
expectation  of  profit.     He  expected  very  large 
returns  from  "  The  Liberal."     Readers  in  these 
days  need  not  be  told  that  periodical  works, 
which  have  a  large  sale,  are  a  mine  of  wealth. 
Lord  Byron  had  calculated  that  matter  well ; 
and  when  it  is  added,  that  he  loved  money, 
adored  notoriety,  and  naturally  entertained   a 
high  opinion  of  the  effect  of  any  new  kind  of 
writing  which  he  should  take  in  hand,  nobody 
will  believe  it  probable  (nobody  who  knew  him 
will  believe  it  possible)  that  he  should  volun- 
tarily contemplate  the  rejection  of  profits  which 
he  had  agreed  to  receive.     He  would  have  be- 
held in  them  the  most  delightful  of  all  proofs, 
that  his  reputation  was  not  on  the  wane.     For 
here,  after  all,  lay  the  great  secret,  both  of  what 
he  did  and  what  he  did  not  do.     He  was  sub- 
ject, it  is  true,  to  a  number  of  weak  impulses  ; 
would  agree  to  this  thing  and  propose  another, 


50  LORD    BYRON. 

purely  out  of  incontinence  of  will ;  and  offer 
to  do  one  day  what  he  would  bite  his  fingers 
off  to  get  rid  of  the  next.  But  this  plan  of  a 
periodical  publication  was  no  sudden  business ; 
he  had  proposed  it  more  than  once,  and  to  dif- 
ferent persons ;  and  his  reasons  for  it  were, 
that  he  thought  he  should  get  both  money 
and  fame.  A  pique  with  "  The  Quarterly 
Review,"  and  his  Tory  admirers,  roused  his 
regard  for  the  opposite  side  of  the  question. 
He  thought  to  do  himself  good,  and  chagrin 
his  critics,  by  assisting  an  enemy.  The  natural 
Toryism  of  some  pretended  lovers  of  liberty 
first  alarmed  him  by  a  hint,  that  he  might 
possibly  not  succeed.  He  supported  his  re- 
solution by  the  hopes  I  have  just  mentioned, 
and  even  tried  to  encourage  himself  into  a 
pique  with  his  friends  :  but  the  failure  of  the 
large  profits — the  non-appearance  of  the  golden 
visions  he  had  looked  for, — of  the  Edinburgh 
and  Quarterly  returns, — of  the  solid  and  splen- 
did proofs  of  this  new  country  which  he  should 
conquer  in  the  regions  of  notoriety,  to  the 
dazzling  of  all  men's  eyes  and  his  own, — this  it 
was,  this  was  the  bitter  disappointment  which 


LOUD    BYRON.  87 

made  him  determine  to  give  way,  and  which 
ultimately  assisted  in  carrying  him  as  far  as 
Greece,  in  the  hope  of  another  redemption 
of  his  honours.  From  the  moment  he  saw 
the  moderate  profits  of  "  The  Liberal,"  (quite 
enough  to  encourage  perseverance,  if  he  had 
had  it,  but  not  in  the  midst  of  a  hundred 
wounded  vanities  and  inordinate  hopes),  he 
resolved  to  have  nothing  farther  to  do  with  it  in 
the  way  of  real  assistance.  He  made  use  of  it 
only  for  the  publication  of  some  things  which 
his  Tory  bookseller  was  afraid  to  put  forth. 
Indeed,  he  began  with  a  contribution  of  that 
sort ;  but  then  he  thought  it  would  carry  every 
thing  before  it.  It  also  enabled  him  to  make 
a  pretence,  with  his  friends,  of  doing  as  little 
as  possible  ;  while  he  secretly  indulged  himself 
in  opposition  both  to  them  and  his  enemies. 
It  failed ;  and  he  then  made  an  instrument  of 
the  magazine,  in  such  a  manner  as  to  indulge 
his  own  spleen,  and  maintain  an  appearance  of 
co-operation,  while  in  reality  he  did  nothing  for 
it  but  hasten  its  downfall. 

There  were  undoubtedly  other  causes  which 
conspired  to  this  end  ;  but  they  were  of  minor 


88  LORD    BYRON. 

importance,  and  would  gradually  have  been 
done  away,  had  he  possessed  spirit  and  inde- 
pendence enough  to  persevere.  It  was  thought 
that  Mr.  Shelley's  co-operation  would  have  hurt 
the  magazine ;  and  so  it  might  in  a  degree ; 
till  the  public  became  too  much  interested  to 
object  to  it ;  but  Mr.  Shelley  was  dead,  and 
people  were  already  beginning  to  hear  good  of 
him  and  to  like  him.  Extinctus  amabitur.  I 
myself,  however,  who  was  expected  to  write  a 
good  deal,  and  probably  to  be  inspired  beyond 
myself  by  the  delight  and  grandeur  of  my  po- 
sition, was  in  very  bad  health,  and  as  little  con- 
scious of  delight  and  grandeur  as  possible.  I 
had  been  used  to  write  under  trying  circum- 
stances ;  but  latterly  I  had  been  scarcely  able 
to  write  at  all ;  and  at  the  time  I  never  felt 
more  oppressed  in  my  life  with  a  sense  of  what 
was  to  be  done.  Then  the  publisher  was  a 
much  better  patriot  than  man  of  business  :  he 
was  also  new  to  his  work  as  a  bookseller ;  and 
the  trade  (who  can  do  more  in  these  matters 
than  people  are  aware  of)  set  their  faces  against 
him ;  particularly  Lord  Byron's  old  publisher, 
who  was  jealous  and  in  a  frenzy.  To  crown 


LORD    BYRON.  89 

all,  an  article  (the  "  Vision  of  Judgment")  was 
sent  my  brother  for  insertion,  which  would 
have  frightened  any  other  publisher,  or  at  least 
set  him  upon  garbling  and  making  stars.  My 
brother  saw  nothing  in  it  but  Lord  Byron,  and 
a  prodigious  hit  at  the  Tories  ;  and  he  pre- 
pared his  machine  accordingly  for  sending  for- 
ward the  blow  unmitigated.  Unfortunately  it 
recoiled,  and  played  the  devil  with  all  of  us. 
I  confess,  for  my  part,  having  been  let  a  little 
more  into  the  interior  in  these  matters,  that 
had  I  seen  the  article,  before  it  was  published,  I 
should  have  advised  against  the  appearance  of 
certain  passages  ;  but  Lord  Byron  had  no  copy 
in  Italy.  It  was  sent,  by  his  direction,  straight 
from  Mr.  Murray  to  the  publisher's ;  and  the 
first  time  1  beheld  it,  was  in  the  work  that  I 
edited. 

That  first  number  of  "  The  Liberal"  got  us  a 
great  number  of  enemies,  some  of  a  nature  which 
we  would  rather  have  had  on  our  side ;  a  great 
many  because  they  felt  their  self-love  wounded 
as  authors,  and  more  out  of  a  national  preju- 
dice. The  prejudice  is  not  so  strong  as  it  was 
upon  the  particular  subject  alluded  to ;  but  it 


90  LORD    BYRON. 

is  the  least  likely  to  wear  out,  because  the 
national  vanity  is  concerned  in  it,  and  it  can 
only  be  conquered  by  an  admission  of  defects. 
What  renders  the  case  more  inveterate  is,  that 
none  partake  of  it  more  strongly  than  the  most 
violent  of  its  opponents.  In  addition  to  the 
scandal  excited  by  the  "  Vision  of  Judgment," 
there  was  the  untimely  seasonableness  of  the 
epigrams  upon  poor  Lord  Castlereagh.  Lord 
Byron  wrote  them.  They  arose  from  the  im- 
pulse of  the  moment;  were  intended  for  a 
newspaper,  and  in  that  more  fugitive  medium, 
would  have  made  a  comparatively  fugitive  im- 
pression. Arrested  in  a  magazine,  they  were 
kept  longer  before  the  eyes  of  the  public,  and 
what  might  have  been  pardoned  as  an  impulse, 
was  regarded  with  horror  as  a  thing  deliberate. 
Politicians  in  earnest,  and  politicians  not  in 
earnest,  were  mortified  by  the  preface ;  all  the 
real  or  pretended  orthodox,  who  can  admire  a 
startling  poem  from  a  state-minister  (Goethe), 
were  vexed  to  see  that  Mr.  Shelley  could  trans- 
late it ;  and  all  the  pretenders  in  literature  were 
vexed  by  the  attack  upon  Hoole,  and  the 
article  headed  "  Rhyme  and  Reason  ;"  in  which 


LORD    BYRON.  91 

latter,  I  fear,  even  a  wit,  whom  I  could  name, 
was  capable  of  finding  an  ill  intention.     I  be- 
gan to  think  so  when  I  heard  of  his  criticisms, 
and  saw  his  next  poem.     But  the  "  Vision  of 
Judgment,"  with  which  none  of  the  articles 
were  to  be  compared,  and  which,  in  truth,  is 
the  best  piece  of  satire  Lord  Byron  ever  put 
forth,  was  grudged   us  the  more,  and  roused 
greater  hostility  on  that  account.     Envy  of  the 
silliest  kind,  and  from  the  silliest  people,  such 
as  it  is  really  degrading  to  be  the  object  of, 
pursued  us  at  every  turn  ;    and  when  Mr.  Haz- 
litt  joined  us,  alarm  as  well  as  envy  was  at  its 
height.     After  all,  perhaps,  there  was  nothing 
that  vexed  these  people,  more  than   their  in- 
ability  to   discover   which  were  Lord  Byron's 
articles,  and  which  not.     It  betrayed  a  secret 
in  the   shallows   of   criticism,   even   to  them- 
selves, and  was  not  to  be  forgiven.     The  work 
struggled   on   for   a   time,    and   then,    owing 
partly  to  private  circumstances,   which  I  had 
explained  in  my  first  writing  of  these  pages, 
but  which   it  has   become  unnecessary  to   re- 
cord, was  quietly  dropped.     I  shall  only  men- 
tion, that  Lord  Byron,  after  the  failure  of  the 


92  LOUD    BYKON. 

"  great  profits,"  had  declared  his  intention 
of  receiving  nothing  from  the  work  till  it  pro- 
duced a  certain  sum  ;  and  that  I  unexpectedly 
turned  out  to  be  in  the  receipt  of  the  whole 
profits  of  the  proprietorship,  which  I  regarded, 
but  too  truly,  as  one  of  a  very  ominous  de- 
scription. All  which  publicly  concerns  the  ori- 
gin and  downfall  of  the  Magazine  the  readers 
are  acquainted  with,  excepting  perhaps  the 
political  pique  which  Mr.  Hobhouse  may  have 
felt  against  us,  and  the  critical  one  which 
has  been  attributed  to  Mr.  Moore.  Mr.  Haz- 
litt  is  supposed  to  have  had  his  share  in  the 
offence  ;  and  certainly,  as  far  as  writing  in  the 
work  was  concerned,  he  gave  stronger  reasons 
for  it  than  I  could  do.  But  he  shall  speak  for 
himself  in  a  note,  at  the  hazard  of  blowing 
up  my  less  gunpowder  text.*  Mr.  Hob- 

*  "  At  the  time,"  says  Mr.  Hazlitt,  "  that  Lord  Byron 
thought  proper  to  join  with  Mr.  Leigh  Hunt  and  Mr.  Shel- 
ley in  the  publication  called  The  Liberal,  Blackwood's  Maga- 
zine overflowed,  as  might  be  expected,  with  tenfold  gall  and 

bitterness ;    the  John  Bull  was   outrageous,  and   Mr. 

black  in  the  face,  at  this  unheard-of  and  disgraceful  union. 
But  who  would  have  supposed  that  Mr.  Thomas  Moore  and 
Mr.  Hobhouse,  those  staunch  friends  and  partisans  of  the 


LORD    BYRON.  93 

house  was  once  called  upon  by  the  electors 
of  Westminster  for  an  explicit  statement  of 

people,  should  also  be  thrown  into  almost  hysterical  agonies 
of  well-bred  horror  at  the  coalition  between  their  noble  and 
ignoble  acquaintance — between  the  patrician  and  '  the  news- 
paper-man ?'  Mr.  Moore  darted  backwards  and  forwards 
from  Cold-Bath-Fields  Prison  to  the  Examiner  office,  from 
Mr.  Longman's  to  Mr.  Murray's  shop  in  a  state  of  ridiculous 
trepidation,  to  see  what  was  to  be  done  to  prevent  this  degra- 
dation of  the  aristocracy  of  letters,  this  indecent  encroach- 
ment of  plebeian  pretensions,  this  undue  extension  of  patro- 
nage and  compromise  of  privilege.  The  Tories  were  shocked 
that  Lord  Byron  should  grace  the  popular  side  by  his  direct 
countenance  and  assistance ;  the  Whigs  were  shocked  that 
he  should  share  his  contidence  and  counsels  with  any  one 
who  did  not  unite  the  double  recommendations  of  birth  and 
genius — but  themselves  !  Mr.  Moore  had  lived  so  long 
among  the  great,  that  he  fancied  himself  one  of  them,  and 
regarded  the  indignity  as  done  to  himself.  Mr.  Hobhouse 
had  lately  been  black-balled  by  the  Clubs,  and  must  feel 
particularly  sore  and  tenacious  on  the  score  of  public  opinion. 
Mr.  Shelley's  father,  however,  was  an  elder  baronet  than 
Mr.  Hobhouse's  ;  Mr.  Leigh  Hunt  was  '  to  the  full  as  gen- 
teel a  man'  as  Mr.  Moore,  in  birth,  appearance,  and  educa- 
tion ;  the  pursuits  of  all  four  were  the  same— the  Muse» 
the  public  favour,  and  the  public  good.  Mr.  Moore  was 
himself  invited  to  assist  in  the  undertaking,  but  he  professed 
an  utter  aversion  to,  and  warned  Lord  Byron  against,  having 
any  concern  with  joint  publications,  as  of  a  very  neutralizing 
and  levelling  description.  He  might  speak  from  experience. 


94  LORD    BYRON. 

his  opinions  on  the  subject  of  reform.  He 
gave  a  statement  which  was  thought  not 

He  had  tried  his  hand  in  that  Ulysses'  bow  of  critics  and 
politicians,  the  Edinburgh  Review,  though  his  secret  had 
never  transpired.  Mr.  Hobhouse,  too,  had  written  Illustra- 
tions of  Childe  Harold  (a  sort  of  partnership  concern) — yet, 
to  quash  the  publication  of  The  Liberal,  he  seriously  pro- 
posed that  his  noble  friend  should  write  once  a-week,  in  his 
own  name,  in  the  Examiner.  The  Liberal  scheme,  he  was 
afraid,  might  succeed ;  the  newspaper  one  he  knew  could 
not.  I  have  been  whispered,  that  the  member  for  West- 
minster (for  whom  I  once  gave  an  ineffectual  vote)  has  also 
conceived  some  distaste  for  me — I  do  not  know  why,  except 
that  I  was  at  one  time  named  as  the  writer  of  the  famous 
Trecenti  Juravimus  Letter  to  Mr.  Canning,  which  appeared 
in  the  Examiner,  and  was  afterwards  suppressed.  He  might 
feel  the  disgrace  of  such  a  supposition  :  I  confess  I  did  not 
feel  the  honour.  The  cabal,  the  bustle,  the  significant  hints, 
the  confidential  rumours  were  at  the  height,  when,  after  Mr. 
Shelley's  death,  I  was  invited  to  take  a  part  in  this  obnoxious 
publication  (obnoxious  alike  to  friend  and  foe) ;  and  when 
the  Essay  on  the  Spirit  of  Monarchy  appeared  (which  must 
indeed  have  operated  like  a  bomb-shell  thrown  into  the  cote- 
ries that  Mr.  Moore  frequented,  as  well  as  those  that  he  had 
left,)  this  gentleman  wrote  off  to  Lord  Byron,  to  say  that, 
'  there  was  a  taint  in  The  Liberal,  and  that  he  should  lose 
no  time  in  getting  out  of  it.'  And  this,  from  Mr.  Moore 
to  Lord  Byron — the  last  of  whom  had  just  involved  the  pub- 
lication, against  which  he  was  cautioned  as  having  a  taint 
in  it,  in  a  prosecution  for  libel  by  his  Vision  of  Judgment, 


LORD    BYRON.  95 

to  be  explicit,  or  even  intelligible ;  and  I  had 
the   misfortune,   in   "  The   Examiner,"  to   be 

and  the  first  of  whom  had  scarcely  written  any  thing  all  his 
life  that  had  not  a  taint  in  it.  It  is  true,  the  Holland-house 
party  might  be  somewhat  staggered  by  ajeii  d' esprit  that  set 
their  Blackstone  and  De  Lolme  theories  at  defiance,  and  that 
they  could  as  little  write  as  answer.  But  it  was  not  that. 
Mr.  Moore  also  complained  that  '  I  had  spoken  against  Lalla 
Rookh,'  though  he  had  just  before  sent  me  his  '  Fudge  Fa- 
mily.' Still  it  was  not  that.  But  at  the  time  he  sent  me 
that  very  delightful  and  spirited  publication,  my  little 
bark  was  seen  '  hulling  on  the  flood/  in  a  kind  of  dubious 
twilight,  and  it  was  not  known  whether  I  might  not  prove  a 
vessel  of  gallant  trim.  Mr.  Blackwood  had  not  then  directed 
his  Grub-street  battery  against  me :  but  as  soon  as  this  was 
the  case,  Mr.  Moore  was  willing  to  '  whistle  me  down  the 
wind  and  let  me  prey  at  fortune  ;'  not  that  I  '  proved  hag- 
gard,' but  the  contrary.  It  is  sheer  cowardice  and  want  of 
heart.  The  sole  object  of  the  rest  is  not  to  stem  the  tide 
of  pi-ejudice  and  falsehood,  but  to  get  out  of  the  way  them- 
selves. The  instant  another  is  assailed  (however  un- 
justly,) instead  of  standing  manfully  by  him,  they  cut  the 
connexion  as  fast  as  possible,  and  sanction  by  their  si- 
lence and  reserve  the  accusations  they  ought  to  repel. 
Sauve  qui  pent  —  every  one  has  enough  to  do  to  look 
after  his  own  reputation  or  safety  without  rescuing  a  friend 
or  propping  up  a  falling  cause.  It  is  only  by  keeping 
in  the  back -ground  on  such  occasions  (like  Gil  Bias,  when 
his  friend  Ambrose  Lamela  was  led  by  in  triumph  to  the 
auto-da-fe)  that  they  can  escape  the  like  honours  and  a  sum- 


96  LORD    BYRON. 

compelled  to  say  that  I  was  among  the  num- 
ber of  the  dull  perceptions.  A  few  days  after- 

mary  punishment.  A  shower  of  mud,  a  flight  of  nick-names 
(glancing  a  little  out  of  their  original  direction)  might  ob- 
scure the  last  glimpse  of  royal  favour,  or  stop  the  last  gasp 
of  popularity.  Nor  could  they  answer  it  to  their  noble 
friends  and  more  elegant  pursuits,  to  be  received  in  such 
company,  or  to  have  their  names  coupled  with  similar  out- 
rages. Their  sleek,  glossy,  aspiring  pretensions  should  not 
be  exposed  to  vulgar  contamination,  or  to  be  trodden  under 
foot  of  a  swinish  multitude.  Their  birth-day  suits  (un- 
used) should  not  be  dragged  through  the  kennel,  nor  their 
'  tricksy'  laurel  wreaths  stuck  in  the  pillory*  This  would 
make  them  equally  unfit  to  be  taken  into  the  palaces  or  the 
carriages  of  peers.  If  excluded  from  both,  what  would  be- 
come of  them  ?  The  only  way,  therefore,  to  avoid  being  im- 
plicated in  the  abuse  poured  upon  others,  is  to  pretend  that 
it  is  just— the  way  not  to  be  made  the  object  of  the  hue  and 
cry  raised  against  a  friend,  is  to  aid  it  by  underhand  whispers. 
It  is  pleasant  neither  to  participate  in  disgrace  nor  to  have 
honours  divided.  The  more  Lord  Byron  confined  his  inti- 
macy and  friendship  to  a  few  persons  of  middling  rank,  but 
of  extraordinary  merit,  the  more  it  must  redound  to  his  and 
their  credit.  The  lines  of  Pope, 

'  To  view  with  scornful,  yet  with  jealous  eyes, 
And  hate  for  arts  which  caused  himself  to  rise,' — 

might  still  find  a  copy  in  the  breast  of  more  than  one  scrib- 
bler of  politics  and  fashion.  Mr.  Moore  might  not  think 
without  a  pang  of  the  author  of  '  Rimini,'  sitting  at  his 


LORD    BYRON.  97 

wards,  meeting  him  in  Saint  James's-street,  he 
said  he  wondered  at  my  coming  to  that  con- 
clusion, and  asked  me  how  it  could  happen. 
I  did  not  enter  into  the  origin  of  the  pheno- 
menon, but  said  that  I  could  not  help  it,  and 
that  the  statement  did  appear  to  me  singularly 
obscure.  Since  that  time,  I  believe,  I  never 
saw  him  till  we  met  in  the  Casa  Lanfranchi. 
As  to  Mr.  Moore,  he  did  not  relish,  I  know, 
the  objection  which  I  had  made  to  the  style 
of  "  Lalla  Rookh  ;"  but  then  he  had  told  me 
so ;  he  encouraged  me  to  speak  freely  ;  he  had 
spoken  freely  himself;  and  I  felt  all  the  ad- 
miration of  him,  if  not  of  his  poem,  which 
candour,  in  addition  to  wit,  can  excite.  I 
never  suspected  that  he  would  make  this  a 
ground  of  quarrel  with  me  in  after-times  ;  nor 
do  I  now  wish  to  give  more  strength  to  Lord 

ease  with  the  author  of  '  Childe  Harold ;'  Mr.  Hobhouse 
might  be  averse  to  see  my  dogged  prose  bound  up  in  the 
same  volume  with  his  Lordship's  splendid  verse;  and  as- 
suredly it  would  not  facilitate  his  admission  to  the  Clubs, 
that  his  friend  Lord  Byron  had  taken  the  Editor  of  "  The 
Examiner"  by  the  hand,  and  that  their  common  friend,  Mr. 
Moore,  had  taken  no  active  steps  to  prevent  it !" — Plain 
Speaker,  vol.  ii.  p.  437- 

VOL.  I.  H 


98  LORD    BYRON. 

Byron's  way  of  representing  things  on  this 
point  than  on  any  other.  There  may  be  as 
little  foundation  for  his  reporting  that  Mr. 
Moore  would  never  forgive  Hazlitt  for  saying 
that  he  "  ought  not  to  have  written  '  Lalla 
Rookh/  even  for  three  thousand  guineas ;"  a 
condemnation  which,  especially  with  the  con- 
text that  follows  it,  involves  a  compliment  in 
its  very  excess.  *  But  Mr.  Moore  was  not 

*  "  Mr.  Moore  ought  not  to  have  written  "  Lalla  Rookh," 
even  for  three  thousand  guineas.  His  fame  is  worth  more 
than  that.  He  should  have  minded  the  advice  of  Fadladeen. 
It  is  not,  however,  a  failure,  so  much  as  an  evasion  and  a 
consequent  disappointment  of  public  expectation.  He  should 
have  left  it  to  others  to  break  conventions  with  nations,  and 
faith  with  the  world.  He  should,  at  any  rate,  have  kept 
his  with  the  public.  "Lalla  Rookh"  is  not  what  people 
wanted  to  see  whether  Mr.  Moore  could  do ;  namely,  whe- 
ther he  could  write  a  long  epic  poem.  It  is  four  short  tales. 
The  interest,  however,  is  often  high-wrought  and  tragic, 
but  the  execution  still  turns  to  the  effeminate  and  voluptuous 
side.  Fortitude  of  mind  is  the  first  requisite  of  a  tragic  or 
epic  writer.  Happiness  of  nature  and  felicity  of  genius  are 
the  pre-eminent  characteristics  of  the  bard  of  Erin.  If  he 
is  not  perfectly  contented  with  what  he  is,  all  the  world  be- 
side is.  He  had  no  temptation  to  risk  any  thing  in  adding 
to  the  love  and  admiration  of  his  age,  and  more  than  one 
country."- — Lectures  on  the  English  Poets,  p.  301. 


LOUD    BY  HON.  99 

candid,  when  he  wrote  secretly  to  Lord  Byron, 
to  induce  him  to  give  up  the  Magazine ;  and 
to  tell  him,  there  was  "  a  taint"  in  it.  He 
says  he  ought  to  have  recollected,  that  Lord 
Byron  always  showed  the  letters  that  were 
written  to  him.  This  regret  he  has  expressed 
to  a  mutual  friend ;  but  I  do  not  see  how  it 
mends  the  matter.  And  what  did  he  mean  by 
"  a  taint  ?"  Was  it  a  taint  of  love — (very  loth 
am  I  to  put  two  such  words  together,  but  it 
is  for  him  to  explain  the  inconsistency) — Was 
it  a  taint  of  love,  or  of  libel  ?  or  of  infidelity  ? 
or  of  independence  ?  And  was  the  taint  the 
greater,  because  the  independence  was  true? 
Yes :  Mr.  Hazlitt  has  explained  that  matter 
but  too  well. 

Towards  the  end  of  September,  Lord  Byron 
and  myself,  in  different  parties,  left  Pisa  for 
Genoa.  He  was  restless,  as  he  had  always 
been  ;  Tuscany  was  uncomfortable  to  him ; 
and  at  Genoa  he  would  hover  on  the  borders 
of  his  inclination  for  Greece.  Perhaps  he  had 
already  made  arrangements  for  going  there. 
We  met  at  Lerici  on  our  way.  He  had  an 
illness  at  that  place;  and  all  my  melancholy 
H  2 


100  LORD    BYRON. 

was  put  to  its  height  by  seeing  the  spot  my 
departed  friend  had  lived  in,  and  his  solitary 
mansion  on  the  sea-shore.  The  place  is  wild 
and  retired,  with  a  bay  and  rocky  eminences ; 
the  people  suited  to  it,  something  between 
inhabitants  of  sea  and  land.  In  the  summer- 
time they  will  be  up  all  night  dabbling  in 
the  water,  and  making  wild  noises.  Here  Mr. 
Trelawney  joined  us.  He  took  me  to  the 
Villa  Magni  (the  house  just  alluded  to);  and 
we  paced  over  its  empty  rooms,  and  neglected 
garden.  The  sea  fawned  upon  the  shore,  as 
though  it  could  do  no  harm. 

At  Lerici  we  had  an  earthquake.  It  was 
the  strongest  we  experienced  in  Italy.  At 
Pisa  there  had  been  a  dull  intimation  of  one, 
such  as  happens  in  that  city  about  once  in 
three  years.  In  the  neighbourhood  of  Florence 
we  had  another,  pretty  smart  of  its  kind,  but 
lasting  only  for  an  instant.  It  was  exactly  as 
if  somebody  with  a  strong  hand  had  jerked  a 
pole  up  against  the  ceiling  of  the  lower  room, 
right  under  one's  feet.  This  was  at  Maiano, 
among  the  Fiesolan  hills.  People  came  out 
of  their  rooms,  and  enquired  of  one  another 


LOED    BY11ON.  101 

what  was  the  matter  ;  so  that  it  was  no  delu- 
sion. At  Lerici  nobody  could  have  mistaken.  I 
was  awakened  at  dawn  with  an  extraordinary 
sensation,  and  directly  afterwards  the  earth- 
quake took  place.  It  was  strong  enough  to 
shake  the  pictures  on  the  wall ;  and  it  lasted  a 
sufficient  time  to  resemble  the  rolling  of  a  wag- 
gon under  an  archway,  which  it  did  both  in 
noise  and  movement.  I  got  up,  and  went  to  the 
window.  The  people  were  already  collecting 
in  the  open  place  beneath  it ;  and  I  heard,  in 
the  clear  morning  air,  the  word  Terremoto  re- 
peated from  one  to  another.  The  sensation 
for  the  next  ten  minutes  or  quarter  of  an  hour, 
was  very  great.  You  expected  the  shock  to 
come  again,  and  to  be  worse.  However,  we  had 
no  more  of  it.  We  congratulated  ourselves  the 
more,  because  there  was  a  tower  on  a  rock  just 
over  our  heads,  which  would  have  stood  upon 
no  ceremony  with  our  inn.  They  told  us,  if 
I  remember,  that  they  had  an  earthquake  on 
this  part  of  the  coast  of  Italy,  about  once  every 
five  years.  Italy  is  a  land  of  volcanoes,  more 
or  less  subdued.  It  is  a  great  grapery,  built 
over  a  flue. 


102  LORD    BYRON. 

From  Lerici,  we  proceeded  part  of  our  way 
by  water,  as  far  as  Sestri.  Lord  Byron  and 
Madame  Guiccioli  went  in  a  private  boat ;  Mr. 
Trelawney  in  another ;  and  myself  and  family 
in  a  felucca.  It  was  pretty  to  see  the  boats 
with  their  white  sails,  gliding  by  the  rocks, 
over  that  blue  sea.  A  little  breeze  coming  on, 
our  gallant  seamen  were  afraid,  and  put  into 
Porto  Venere,  a  deserted  town  a  short  dis- 
tance from  Lerici.  I  asked  them  if  they  really 
meant  to  put  in,  upon  which  they  looked  very 
determined  on  that  point,  and  said,  that  "  Eng- 
lishmen had  no  sense  of  danger."  I  smiled  in- 
ternally to  think  of  the  British  Channel.  I 
thought  also  of  the  thunder  and  lightning  in 
this  very  sea,  where  they  might  have  seen 
British  tars  themselves  astonished  with  fear. 
In  Italy,  Englishmen  are  called  "  the  mad 
English,"  from  the  hazards  they  run.  They 
like  to  astonish  the  natives  by  a  little  super- 
fluous peril.  If  you  see  a  man  coming  fu- 
riously down  the  street  on  horseback,  you  may 
be  pretty  certain  he  is  an  Englishman.  An 
English  mail-coach,  with  that  cauliflower  of 
human  beings  a-top  of  it,  lumping  from  side 


LORD    BYRON.  103 

to  side,    would  make  the  hearts  of  a   Tuscan 
city  die  within  them. 

Porto  Venere  is  like  a  petrified  town  in  a 
story-book.     The  classical  name  took  us,  and 
we  roamed  over  it.     It  was  curious  to  pass 
the  houses  one  after  the  other,  and  meet  not  a 
soul.      Such  inhabitants  as  there  are,  confine 
themselves  to  the  sea-shore.     After  resting  a 
few  hours,  we  put  forth  again,  and  had  a  lazy, 
sunny  passage  to  Sestri,  where  a  crowd  of  peo- 
ple assailed  us,  like  savages  at  an  island,  for 
our  patronage  and  portmanteaus.     They  were 
robust,  clamorous,  fishy  fellows,  like  so  many 
children  of  the  Tritons  in  Raphael's  pictures ; 
as  if  those  plebeian  gods  of  the  sea  had  been 
making  love  to  Italian  chambermaids.     Italian 
goddesses   have  shown   a  taste  not  unsimilar, 
and  more  condescending ;   and  English  ones 
too    in   Italy,   if   scandal   is    to   be   believed. 
But  Naples  is  the  head-quarters  of  this  over- 
growth of  wild  luxury.     Marini,  a  Neapolitan, 
may  have  had  it  in  his  eye,  when  he  wrote 
that  fine  sonnet  of  his,  full  of  aboriginal  gusto, 
brawny  and  bearded,  about  Proteus  pursuing 
Cymothoe.      (See  Parnaso   Italiano,   torn.  41, 


104  LORD    BYHON. 

p.  10.)  Liking  every  thing  real  in  poetry,  I 
should  be  tempted  to  give  a  specimen ;  but 
am  afraid  of  Mr.  Moore. 

From  Sestri  we  proceeded  over  the  maritime 
part  of  the  Apennines  to  Genoa.  Their  cha- 
racter is  of  the  least  interesting  sort  of  any 
mountains,  being  neither  distinct  nor  wooded ; 
but  barren,  savage,  and  coarse ;  without  any 
grandeur  but  what  arises  from  an  excess  of 
that  appearance.  They  lie  in  a  succession  of 
great  doughy  billows,  like  so  much  enormous 
pudding,  or  petrified  mud. 

Genoa  again  !  With  what  different  feelings 
we  beheld  it  the  first  time  !  Mrs.  Shelley,  who 
preceded  us  to  the  city,  had  found  houses  both 
for  Lord  Byron's  family  and  my  own  at  Al- 
baro,  a  neighbouring  village  on  a  hill.  We 
were  to  live  in  the  same  house  with  her ;  and 
in  the  Casa  Negroto  we  accordingly  found 
an  English  welcome.  There  were  forty  rooms 
in  it,  some  of  them  such  as  would  be  considered 
splendid  in  England,  and  all  neat  and  new, 
with  borders  and  arabesques.  The  balcony 
and  staircase  were  of  marble;  and  there  was 
a  little  flower-garden.  The  rent  of  this  house 


LORD    BYRON.  105 

was  twenty  pounds  a-year.  Lord  Byron  paid 
four-and-twenty  for  his,  which  was  older  and 
more  imposing,  with  rooms  in  still  greater 
plenty,  and  a  good  piece  of  ground.  It  was 
called  the  Casa  Saluzzi.*  Mr.  Landor  and  his 
family  had  occupied  a  house  in  the  same  village 
— the  Casa  Pallavicini.  He  has  recorded  an 
interesting  dialogue  that  took  place  in  it.f  Of 

Albaro  I   have  given  an  account   in   another 

/ 
work. 

The  Genoese  post  brought  us  the  first  num- 
ber of  "  The  Liberal,"  accompanied  both  with 
hopes  and  fears,  the  latter  of  which  were  too 
speedily  realized.  Living  now  in  a  separate 
house  from  Lord  Byron,  I  saw  less  of  him  than 
before  ;  and  under  all  the  circumstances,  it  was 
as  well.  It  was  during  our  residence  in  this 
part  of  Italy,  that  the  remaining  numbers  of 
"  The  Liberal"  were  published.  I  did  what  I 

*  Any  relation  to  "  Saluces,"  whose  "  Markis"  married  the 
patient  Griselda  ?  Saluces  was  in  the  maritime  Apennines, 
by  Piedmont,  and  might  have  originated  a  family  of  Genoese 
nobles.  Classical  and  romantic  associations  abound  so  at 
every  turn  in  Italy,  that  upon  the  least  hint  a  book  speaketh. 

t  Imaginary  Conversations,  Vol.  i.  p.  179,,  Second  Edition. 


106  LORD    BYRON. 

could  to  make  him  persevere  ;  and  have  to  take 
shame  to  myself,  that  in  my  anxiety  on  that 
point,  I  persuaded  him  to  send  over  "The 
Blues"  for  insertion,  rather  than  contribute 
nothing.  It  is  the  only  thing  connected  with 
"  The  Liberal"  that  I  gave  myself  occasion  to 
regret.  I  cannot  indeed  boast  of  my  commu- 
nications to  it.  Illness  and  unhappiness  must 
be  my  excuse.  They  are  things  under  which 
a  man  does  not  always  write  his  worst.  They 
may  even  supply  him  with  a  sort  of  fevered 
inspiration ;  but  this  was  not  my  case  at  the 
time.  The  only  pieces  I  would  save,  if  I 
could,  from  oblivion,  out  of  that  work,  are  the 
"  Rhyme  and  Reason,"  the  "  Lines  to  a  Spi- 
der," and  the  copy  of  verses  entitled  "  Mah- 
moud."  The  little  gibe  on  his  native  place, 
out  of  "  Al  Hamadani,"  might  accompany 
them.  I  must  not  omit,  that  Lord  Byron 
would  have  put  his  "  Island"  in  it,  and  I  be- 
lieve another  poem,  if  I  had  thought  it  of  use. 
It  would  all  have  been  so  much  dead  weight ; 
especially  as  the  readers,  not  being  certain  it 
was  contributed  by  his  Lordship,  would  not 
have  known  whether  they  were  to  be  enrap- 


LORD    BYRON.  107 

tured  or  indifferent.  By  and  by  he  would  have 
taken  them  out,  published  them  by  themselves, 
and  then  complained  that  they  would  have 
sold  before,  if  it  had  not  been  for  "The  Li- 
beral." What  he  should  have  done  for  the  work 
was  to  stand  by  it  openly  and  manfully,  to 
make  it  the  obvious  channel  of  his  junction  with 
the  cause  of  freedom,  to  contribute  to  it  not 
his  least  popular  or  his  least  clever  productions, 
but  such  as  the  nature  of  the  work  should  have 
inspired  and  recommended,  or  in  default  of 
being  able  to  do  this  (for  perhaps  he  was  not 
fitted  to  write  for  a  periodical  work)  he  should 
have  gained  all  the  friends  for  it  he  could,  not 
among  those  whom  he  "  libelled  all  round,"  but 
among  thousands  of  readers  all  prepared  to  ad- 
mire, and  love  him,  and  think  it  an  honour  to 
fight  under  his  banner.  But  he  had  no  real 
heart  in  the  business,  nor  for  any  thing  else 
but  a  feverish  notoriety.  It  was  by  this  he 
was  to  shake  at  once  the  great  world  and 
the  small ;  the  mountain  and  the  mouse  ;  the 
imaginations  of  the  public,  and  the  approving 
nod  of  the  "  men  of  wit  and  fashion  about 
town."  Mr.  Hazlitt,  habitually  paradoxical, 


108  LOKD    BYRON. 

sometimes  pastoral,  and  never  without  the 
self-love  which  he  is  so  fond  of  discerning  in 
others,  believed  at  the  moment  that  a  lord  had 
a  liking  for  him,  and  that  a  lord  and  a  sophis- 
ticate poet  would  put  up  with  his  sincerities 
about  the  aristocratical  and  the  primitive.  It 
begat  in  him  a  love  for  the  noble  Bard;  and  I 
am  not  sure  that  he  has  got  rid,  to  this  day, 
of  the  notion  that  it  was  returned.  He  was 
taken  in,  as  others  had  been,  and  as  all  the 
world  chose  and  delighted  to  be,  as  long  as 
the  flattering  self-reflection  was  allowed  a  rem- 
nant to  act  upon.  The  mirror  was  pieced  at 
Missolonghi,  and  then  they  could  expatiate  at 
large  on  the  noble  lord's  image  and  their  own  ! 
Sorry  cozenage  !  Poor  and  melancholy  conclu- 
sion to  come  to  respecting  great  as  well  as 
little ;  and  such  as  would  be  frightful  to  think 
of,  if  human  nature,  after  all,  were  not  better 
than  they  pretend.  Lord  Byron  in  truth  was 
afraid  of  Mr.  Hazlitt ;  he  admitted  him  like  a 
courtier,  for  fear  he  should  be  treated  by  him 
as  an  enemy  ;  but  when  he  beheld  such  articles 
as  the  "  Spirit  of  Monarchy,"  where  the  "  taint" 
of  polite  corruption  was  to  be  exposed,  and  the 


LORD    BYRON.  109 

First  Acquaintance  with  Peets,  where  Mr. 
Wordsworth  was  to  be  exalted  above  depre- 
ciation, 

"  In  spite  of  pride,  in  erring  reason's  spite — " 

(for  such  was  Mr.  Hazlitt's  innocent  quotation) 
his  Lordship  could  only  wish  him  out  again, 
and  take  pains  to  show  his  polite  friends  that 
he  had  nothing  in  common  with  so  inconsi- 
derate a  plebeian.  Mr.  Hazlitt  is  a  little  too 
angry  with  Mr.  Moore.  He  ought  to  include 
himself,  who  undertook  to  be  still  more  inde- 
pendent of  high  life,  and  who  can  afford  better 
to  be  mistaken.  A  person  who  knew  Mr. 
Moore  well,  told  me,  that  asking  him  one  day 
how  he  should  feel,  if  the  King  were  to  offer 
to  make  him  a  baronet,  the  author  of  the 
"  Irish  Melodies"  replied,  "  Good  God !  how 
those  people  can  annihilate  us  !"  I  told  this 
answer  to  Mr.  Hazlitt,  who  justly  admired  the 
candour  of  it.  It  would  have  been  more  ad- 
mirable, however,  if  the  poet  were  to  omit 
those  innocent  scoffs  at  the  admirers  of  lords 
and  titles,  with  which  he  sometimes  thinks  fit 
to  mystify  himself :  and  the  philosopher's  ad- 


110  LORD    BYRON. 

miration  of  candour  would  be  better,  if  he 
were  always  candid  himself,  and  now  and  then 
a  little  philosophic. 

I  passed  a  melancholy  time  at  Albaro,  walk- 
ing about  the  stony  alleys,  and  thinking  of 
Mr.  Shelley.  My  intercourse  with  Lord  By- 
ron, though  less  than  before,  was  considera- 
ble :  and  we  were  always,  as  the  phrase  is, 
"on  good  terms."  He  knew  what  I  felt,  for 
I  said  it.  I  also  knew  what  he  thought,  for 
he  said  that,  "  in  a  manner ;"  and  he  was  in 
the  habit  of  giving  you  a  good  deal  to  under- 
stand, in  what  he  did  not  say.  In  the  midst 
of  all  his  strange  conduct,  he  professed  a  great 
personal  regard.  He  would  do  the  most  hu- 
miliating things,  insinuate  the  bitterest,  both 
of  me  and  my  friends,  and  then  affect  to  do 
all  away  with  a  soft  word,  protesting  that  no- 
thing he  ever  said  was  meant  to  apply  to 
myself. 

I  will  take  this  opportunity  of  recording 
some  more  anecdotes  as  they  occur  to  me.  We 
used  to  walk  in  the  grounds  of  the  Casa  Sa- 
luzzi,  talking  for  the  most  part  of  indifferent 
matters,  and  endeavouring  to  joke  away  the 


LORD    BYRON.  Ill 

consciousness  of  our  position.  We  joked  even 
upon  our  differences  of  opinion.  It  was  a  jest 
between  us,  that  the  only  book  that  was  une- 
quivocally a  favourite  on  both  sides,  was  Bos- 
well's  "  Life  of  Johnson."  I  used  to  talk  of 
Johnson  when  I  saw  him  out  of  temper,  or 
wished  to  avoid  other  subjects.  He  asked  me 
one  day,  how  I  should  have  felt  in  Johnson's 
company.  I  said  it  was  difficult  to  judge ; 
because,  living  in  other  times,  and  one's  cha- 
racter being  modified  by  them,  I  could  not  help 
thinking  of  myself  as  I  was  now,  and  Johnson 
as  he  was  in  times  previous :  so  that  it  appear- 
ed to  me  that  I  should  have  been  somewhat 
Jacobinical  in  his  company,  and  not  disposed 
to  put  up  with  his  ipse  dixits.  He  said,  that 
"Johnson  would  have  awed  him,  he  treated 
lords  with  so  much  respect."  This  was  better 
said  than  it  was  meant  to  be,  and  I  have  no 
doubt  was  very  true.  Johnson  would  have 
made  him  a  bow  like  a  churchwarden;  and 
Lord  Byron  would  have  been  in  a  flutter  of 
worshipped  acquiescence.  He  liked  to  imi- 
tate Johnson,  and  say,  "  Why,  Sir,"  in  a  high 
mouthing  way,  rising,  and  looking  about  him. 


1J2  LORD   BYRON. 

Yet  he  hardly  seemed  to  relish  Peter  Pindar's 
imitations,  excellent  as  they  were.  I  used  to 
repeat  to  him  those  laughable  passages  out  of 
"  Bozzy  and  Piozzy." 

Dear  Dr.  Johnson, — 
(It  is  Mrs.  Thrale  who  speaks) — 

"  Dear  Dr.  Johnson  was  in  size  an  ox, 
v       And  of  his  uncle  Andrew  learnt  to  box ; 
A  man  to  wrestlers  and  to  bruisers  dear, 
Who  kept  the  ring  in  Smithfield  a  whole  year. 
The  Doctor  had  an  uncle  too,  ador'd 
By  jumping  gentry,  called  Cornelius  Ford ; 
Who  jump'd  in  boots,  which  jumpers  never  choose, 
Par  as  a  famous  jumper  jump'd  in  shoes." 

See  also  the  next  passage  in  the  book — 

"  At  supper  rose  a  dialogue  on  witches," 

which  I  would  quote  also,  only  I  am  afraid 
Mr.  Moore  would  think  I  was  trespassing  on 
the  privileges  of  high  life.  Again ;  Madame 
Piozzi  says, 

"  Once  at  our  house,  amidst  our  Attic  feast, 
We  liken'd  our  acquaintances  to  beasts : 
As  for  example — some  to  calves  and  hogs, 
And  some  to  bears  and  monkeys,  cats,  and  dogs. 


LORD    BYRON.  H3 

We  said,  (which  charm'd  the  Doctor  much,  no  doubt,) 
His  mind  was  like,  of  elephants  the  snout ; 
That  could  pick  pins  up,  yet  possess'd  the  vigour 
Of  trimming  well  the  jacket  of  a  tiger." 

Bozzy,  When  Johnson  was  in  Edinburgh,  my  wife, 
To  please  his  palate,  studied  for  her  life  ; 
With  ev'ry  rarity  she  fill'd  her  house, 
And  gave  the  Doctor,  for  his  dinner,  grouse. 

Piozzi.  Dear  Doctor  Johnson  left  off  drinks  fermented, 
With  quarts  of  chocolate  and  cream  contented ; 
Yet  often  down  his  throat's  prodigious  gutter, 
Poor  man  !  he  pour'd  whole  floods  of  melted  butter." 

At  these  passages,  which  make  me  laugh  so 
for  the  thousandth  time,  that  I  can  hardly 
write  them,  Lord  Byron  had  too  invincible  a 
relish  of  a  good  thing  not  to  laugh  also,  but 
he  did  it  uneasily.  The  cause  is  left  to  the 
reader's  speculation. 

With  the  commiseration  about  the  melted 
butter,  we  agreed  heartily.  When  Lord  Cas- 
tlereagh  killed  himself,  it  was  mentioned  in  the 
papers  that  he  had  taken  his  usual  tea  and  but- 
tered toast  for  breakfast.  I  said  there  was  no 
knowing  how  far  even  so  little  a  thing  as  but- 
tered toast  might  not  have  fatally  assisted  in 

VOL.  I.  I 


LORD   BYRON. 


exasperating  that  ill  state  of  stomach,  which 
is  found  to  accompany  melancholy.  As  "  the 
last  feather  breaks  the  horse's  back,"  so  the  last 
injury  done  to  the  organs  of  digestion  may 
make  a  man  kill  himself.  He  agreed  with  me 
entirely  in  this;  and  said,  the  world  were  as 
much  in  the  wrong,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten, 
respecting  the  immediate  causes  of  suicide,  as 
they  were  in  their  notions  about  the  'harmless- 
ness  of  this  and  that  food,  and  the  quantity 
of  it. 

Like  many  other  wise  theorists  on  this  sub- 
ject, he  had  wilfully  shut  his  eyes  to  the  prac- 
tice, though  I  do  not  mean  to  say  he  was  ex- 
cessive in  eating  and  drinking.     He  had  only 
been  in  the  habit,  latterly,  of  taking  too  much 
for  his  particular  temperament  ;  a  fault,  in  one 
respect,  the  most  pardonable  in  those  who  are 
most  aware  of  it,  the  uneasiness  of  a  sedentary 
stomach  tempting  them  to  the  very  indulgence 
that  is  hurtful.    I  know  what  it  is  ;  and  beg,  in 
this,  as  on  other  occasions,  not  to  be  supposed 
to   imply  any  thing   to   my  own   advantage, 
when  I  am  upon  points  that  may  be  construed 
to  the  disadvantage  of  others.     But  he  had  got 


LORD    BYRON.  115 

fat,  and  then  went  to  the  other  extreme.  He 
came  to  me  one  day  out  of  another  room,  and 
said,  with  great  glee,  "  Look  here !  what  do 
you  say  to  this  ?"  at  the  same  time  doubling 
the  lapells  of  his  coat  one  over  the  other: — 
"  three  months  ago,"  added  he,  "  I  could  not 
button  it."  Sometimes,  though  rarely,  with 
a  desperate  payment  of  his  virtue,  he  would 
make  an  outrageous  dinner ;  eating  all  sorts  of 
things  that  were  unfit  for  him,  and  suffering 
accordingly  next  day.  He  once  sent  to  Paris 
for  one  of  the  travelling  pies  they  make  there 
— things  that  distribute  indigestion  by  return  of 
post,  and  cost  three  or  four  guineas.  Twenty 
crowns,  I  think,  he  gave  for  it.  He  tasted,  and 
dined.  The  next  day  he  was  fain  to  make  a 
present  of  six-eighths  of  it  to  an  envoy : — 
"  Lord  Byron's  compliments,  and  he  sends  his 
Excellency  a  pasty  that  has  seen  the  world." 
He  did  not  write  this ;  but  this  was  implied  in 
his  compliment.  It  is  to  be  hoped  his  Excel- 
lency had  met  the  pasty  before. 

It  is  a  credit  to  my  noble  acquaintance,  that 
he  was  by  far  the  pleasantest  when  he  had  got 
wine  in  his  head.  The  only  time  I  invited 

i  2 


116  LORD    BYRON. 

myself  to  dine  with  him,  I  told  him  I  did  it 
on  that  account,  and  that  I  meant  to  push  the 
bottle  so,  that  he  should  intoxicate  me  with 
his  good  company.  He  said  he  would  have 
a  set-to ;  but  he  never  did  it.  I  believe  he 
was  afraid.  It  was  a  little  before  he  left  Italy  : 
and  there  was  a  point  in  contest  between  us 
not  regarding  myself)  which  he  thought  per- 
haps I  should  persuade  him  to  give  up.  When 
in  his  cups,  which  was  not  often,  nor  immode- 
rately, he  was  inclined  to  be  tender  ;  but  not 
weakly  so,  nor  lachrymose.  I  know  not  how 
it  might  have  been  with  every  body,  but  he 
paid  me  the  compliment  of  being  excited  to 
his  very  best  feelings;  and  when  I  rose  late 
to  go  away,  he  would  hold  me  down,  and  say 
with  a  look  of  entreaty,  "  Not  yet."  Then  it 
was  that  I  seemed  to  talk  with  the  proper 
natural  Byron  as  he  ought  to  have  been ;  and 
there  was  not  a  sacrifice  I  could  not  have  made 
to  keep  him  in  that  temper  ;  and  see  his  friends 
love  him,  as  much  as  the  world  admired.  Next 
morning  it  was  all  gone.  His  intimacy  with 
the  worst  part  of  mankind  had  got  him  again 


\ 


LORD    BYRON.  117 

in  its  chilling  crust ;  and  nothing  remained  but 
to  despair  and  joke. 

In  his  wine  he  would  volunteer  an  imitation 
of  somebody,  generally  of  Incledon.  He  was 
not  a  good  mimic  in  the  detail ;  but  he  could 
give  a  lively  broad  sketch ;  and  over  his  cups 
his  imitations  were  good-natured,  which  was 
seldom  the  case  at  other  times.  His  Incledon 
was  vocal.  I  made  pretensions  to  the  oratori- 
cal part ;  and  between  us,  we  boasted  that  we 
made  up  the  entire  phenomenon.  Mr.  Ma- 
thews  would  have  found  it  defective;  or  ra- 
ther, he  would  not ;  for  had  he  been  there, 
we  should  judiciously  have  secreted  our  pre- 
tensions, and  had  the  true  likeness.  We  just 
knew  enough  of  the  matter,  to  make  proper 
admirers. 

Good  God  !  The  mention  of  this  imitation 
makes  me  recollect  under  what  frightful  cir- 
cumstances of  gaiety  we  returned  from  per- 
forming an  office  more  than  usually  melancholy 
on  the  sea-shore.  I  dare  allow  myself  only  to 
allude  to  it.  But  we  dined  and  drank  after  it 
— dined  little,  and  drank  much.  Lord  Byron 


118  LORD    BYRON. 

had  not  shone  that  day,  even  in  his  cups.  For 
myself,  I  had  bordered  upon  emotions  which  I 
have  never  suffered  myself  to  indulge,  and 
which  foolishly  as  well  as  impatiently  render 
calamity,  as  somebody  termed  it,  "  an  affront, 
and  not  a  misfortune."  The  barouche  drove 
rapidly  through  the  forest  of  Pisa.  We  sang, 
we  laughed,  we  shouted.  I  even  felt  a  gaiety 
the  more  shocking,  because  it  was  rear  and  a 
relief.  What  the  coachman  thought  of  us, 
God  knows ;  but  he  helped  to  make  up  a 
ghastly  trio.  He  was  a  good-tempered  fellow, 
and  an  affectionate  husband  and  father  ;  yet  he 
had  the  reputation  of  having  offered  his  master 
to  knock  a  man  on  the  head.  I  wish  to  have 
no  such  waking  dream  again.  It  was  worthy 
of  a  German  ballad. 

This  servant  his  Lordship  had  exalted  into 
something  wonderfully  attached  to  him,  though 
he  used  to  fight  hard  with  the  man  on  some 
points.  But  alive  as  he  was  to  the  mock-heroic 
in  others,  he  would  commit  it  with  a  strange 
unconscious  gravity,  where  his  own  importance 
was  concerned.  Another  servant  of  his,  a  great 
baby  of  a  fellow,  with  a  florid  face  and  huge 


LORD    BYRON.  119 

whiskers,  who,  with  very  equivocal  symptoms 
of  valour,  talked  highly  about  Greece  and 
fighting,  and  who  went  strutting  about  in  a 
hussar  dress,  and  a  sword  by  his  side,  gave 
himself,  all  on  a  sudden,  such  ludicrous  airs  at 
the  door,  as  his  Lordship's  porter,  that  notice 
was  taken  of  it.  "  Poor  fellow !"  said  Lord 
Byron,  "  he  is  too  full  of  his  attachment  to  me. 
He  is  a  sort  of  Dolabella!"  Thus  likening  a 
great  simpleton  of  a  footman  to  the  follower  of 
Antony ! 

"  Have  you  seen  my  three  helmets  ?"  he 
inquired  one  day,  with  an  air  between  hesita- 
tion and  hurry.  Upon  being  answered  in  the 
negative,  he  said  he  would  show  them  me,  and 
began  to  enter  a  room  for  that  purpose;  but 
stopped  short,  and  put  it  off  to  another  time. 
The  mock-heroic  was  a  little  too  strong  for 
him.  These  three  helmets  he  had  got  up  in 
honour  of  his  going  to  war,  and  as  harbingers 
of  achievement.  They  were  of  the  proper  clas- 
sical shape,  gilt,  and  had  his  motto,  "  Crede 
Byron,"  upon  them.  One  was  for  himself,  and 
the  two  others  were  destined  to  illustrate  the 
heads  of  the  County  Pietro  and  Mr.  Trelaw- 


120  LORD    BYRON. 

ney,  who,  I  believe,  declined  the  honour.  I 
saw  a  specimen  afterwards — I  never  heard  any 
more  of  them. 

It  is  a  problem  with  the  uninitiated,  whether 
lords  think  much  of  their  titles  or  not ;  whe- 
ther the  fair  sound  is  often  present  to  their 
minds.  Some  of  them  will  treat  the  notion 
with  contempt,  and  call  the  speculation  vulgar. 
You  may  set  these  down  in  particular  for 
thinking  of  them  often.  The  chance  is,  that 
most  of  them  do,  or  what  is  a  title  worth  ? 
They  think  of  them,  as  beauties  think  of  their 
cheeks.  Lord  Byron,  as  M.  Beyle  guessed  so 
well,  certainly  thought  a  great  deal  of  his.  I 
have  touched  upon  this  point  before ;  but  I 
may  add,  that  this  was  one  of  the  reasons  why 
he  was  so  fond  of  the  Americans,  and  thought 
of  paying  them  a  visit.  He  concluded,  that 
having  no  titles,  they  had  the  higher  sense  of 
them ;  otherwise  they  were  not  a  people  to 
his  taste.  He  thought  them  shrewd,  inasmuch 
as  they  were  money-getters ;  but  vulgar,  and 
to  seek  on  all  other  points,  and  "  stubborn 
dogs."  All  their  patriotism,  in  his  mind,  was 
nothing  but  stubbornness.  He  laughed  at 


LORD   BmON.  121 


them,   sometimes   to  their  faces  :    which  they 
were  grateful  enough  to  take  for  companion- 
ship and  a  want  of  pretence.     The  homage  of 
one  or  two  of  them,  however,  he  had  reason  to 
doubt,  whether  he  did  or  not.     I  could  mention 
one  who  knew  him  thoroughly,  and  who  could 
never  sufficiently  express  his  astonishment  at 
having  met  with  so  unpoetical  a  poet,  and  so 
unmajestic  a  lord.     Those  who  only  paid  him 
a  short  visit,  or  communicated  with  him  from 
a  distance,  seemed  as  if  they  could  not  suffi- 
ciently   express     their   flattered   sense   of   his 
greatness  ;  and   he   laughed  at  this,  while  he 
delighted  in  it.     Receiving  one  day   a  letter 
from  an  American,  who  treated  him   with  a 
gravity   of  respect,  at  once  stately  and  defe- 
rential, "  Now,"  said  he,  "  this  man  thinks  he 
has  hit  the  point  to  a  nicety,  and  that  he  has 
just  as  proper  a  notion  of  a  lord  as  is  becoming 
on  both  sides  ;  whereas  he  is  intoxicated  with 
his   new  correspondent."     I  will  not  mention 
what  he  said  of  some  others,  not  Americans, 
who  thought  themselves  at  a  great  advantage 
with  the  uninformed.     But  so  minute  was  his 
criticism  in  these  matters,  that  the  most  accom- 


LORD   BYRON. 


plished  dedicators  would  have  had  reason  to 
dread  him,  had  they  known  all  the  niceties  of 
knowledge,  human  and  patrician,  which  he 
expected,  before  he  could  allow  the  approach 
to  him  to  be  perfect. 

You  were  not  to  suppose,  however,  on  your 
part,  that  he  was  more  in  earnest  than  he  ought 
to  be  upon  these  matters,  even  when  he  was  most 
so.     He  was  to  think  and  say  what  he  pleased  ; 
but  his  hearers  were  to  give  him  credit,  in  spite 
of  himself,  only  for  what  squared  with  their  no- 
tions  of  the  graceful.  Thus  he  would  make  con- 
fessions of  vanity,  or  some  other  fault,  or  of  in- 
aptitude for  a  particular  species  of  writing,  partly 
to  sound  what  you  thought  of  it,  partly  that 
while  you  gave  him  credit  for  the  humility,  you 
were  to  protest  against  the  concession.     All  the 
perversity  of  his  spoiled  nature  would  then  come 
into   play;    and   it  was   in   these,  and   similar 
perplexities,  that  the  main  difficulty  of  living 
with  him  consisted.     If  you  made  every  thing 
tell  in  his  favour,  as  most  people  did,  he  was 
pleased  with  you  for  not  differing  with  him, 
but   then  nothing  was  gained.     The  reverse 
would  have  been  an  affront.     He  lumped  you 


LOUD    BYRON. 


123 


with  the  rest ;  and  was  prepared  to  think  as 
little  of  you  in  the  particular,  as  he  did  of  any 
one  else.*  If  you  contested  a  claim,  or  allowed 
him  to  be  in  the  right  in  a  concession,  he  could 
neither  argue  the  point  nor  really  concede  it. 
He  was  only  mortified,  and  would  take  his  re- 

*  The  following  is  an  extract  from  a  letter  of  Lord  Byron's 
to  Mr.  Shelley.  It  will  puzzle  the  adorers  of  his  early  nar- 
rative writing ;  and  furnish  a  subject  of  pleasing  doubt  to 
the  public,  whether  to  admire  such  cavalier  treatment  of 
them  or  not : — 

"  The  only  literary  news  that  I  have  heard  of  the  plays 
(contrary  to  your  friendly  augury),  is  that  the  Edinburgh  R. 
has  attacked  them  all  three — as  well  as  it  could : — I  have 
not  seen  the  article — Murray  writes  discouragingly,  and 
says  that  nothing  published  this  year  has  made  the  least 
impression,  including,  I  presume,  what  he  has  published  on 
my  account  also. — You  see  what  it  is  to  throw  pearls  to 
swine. — As  long  as  I  wrote  the  exaggerated  nonsense  which 
has  corrupted  the  public  taste,  they  applauded  to  the  very 
echo ;  and  now  that  I  have  composed  within  these  three 
or  four  years  some  things  which  should  c  not  willingly  be  let 
die,' — the  whole  herd  snort  and  grumble,  and  return  to  wal- 
low in  their  mire. — However,  it  is  fit  I  should  pay  the  pe- 
nalty of  spoiling  them,  as  no  man  has  contributed  more  than 
me  in  my  earlier  compositions  to  produce  that  exaggerated 
and  false  style. — It  is  a  fit  retribution  that  any  really  clas- 
sical production  should  be  received  as  these  plays  have  been 
treated." 


124  LORD   BYRON. 

venge.  Lastly,  if  you  behaved  neither  like 
his  admirers  in  general,  nor  in  a  sulky  or  dis- 
putatious manner,  but  naturally,  and  as  if  you 
had  a  right  to  your  jest  and  your  independence, 
whether  to  differ  with  or  admire,  and  apart 
from  an  eternal  consideration  of  himself,  he 
thought  it  an  assumption,  and  would  perplex 
you  with  all  the  airs  and  humours  of  an 
insulted  beauty.  Thus  nobody  could  rely, 
for  a  comfortable  intercourse  with  him,  either 
upon  admissions,  or  non-admissions,  or  even 
upon  flattery  itself.  An  immeasurable  vanity 
kept  even  his  adorers  at  a  distance;  like 
Xerxes  enthroned,  with  his  millions  a  mile  off. 
And  if,  in  a  fit  of  desperation,  he  condescend- 
ed to  come  closer  and  be  fond,  he  laughed 
at  you  for  thinking  yourself  of  consequence 
to  him,  if  you  were  taken  in ;  and  hated  you 
if  you  stood  out,  which  was  to  think  yourself 
of  greater  consequence.  Neither  would  a 
knowledge  of  all  this,  if  you  had  made  him 
conscious,  have  lowered  his  self-admiration  a 
jot.  He  would  have  thought  it  the  mark  of 
a  great  man, — a  noble  capriciousness, — an  evi- 
dence of  power,  which  none  but  the  Alexan- 


LORD    BYRON.  125 

ders  and  Napoleons  of  the  intellectual  world 
could  venture  upon.  Mr.  Hazlitt  had  some 
reason  to  call  him  "  a  sublime  coxcomb."  Who 
but  he  (or  Rochester  perhaps,  whom  be  resem- 
bled) would  have  thought  of  avoiding  Shak- 
speare,  lest  he  should  be  thought  to  owe  him 
any  thing?  And  talking  of  Napoleon,— he 
delighted,  when  he  took  the  additional  name 
of  Noel,  in  consequence  of  his  marriage  with 
an  heiress,  to  sign  himself  N.  B. ;  «  because," 
said  he,  "  Bonaparte  and  I  are  the  only  public 
persons  whose  initials  are  the  same." 

I  have  reason  to  think,  that  the  opinions  I 
entertained  of  breeding  and  refinement  puz- 
zled him  extremely.  At  one  time  he  would 
pay  me  compliments  on  the  score  of  manners 
and  appearance ;  at  another,  my  Jacobinical 
friends  had  hurt  me,  and  I  had  lived  too  much 
out  of  the  world.  He  was  not  a  good  judge 
in  either  case.  His  notion  of  what  was  gen- 
tlemanly in  appearance  was  a  purely  conven- 
tional one,  and  could  include  nothing  higher. 
And  what  was  essentially  unvulgar,  he  would 
take  for  the  reverse,  because  the  polite  vulgar 
did  not  practise  it.  I  have  no  doubt  he  had  a 


126  LORD    BYRON. 

poorer  opinion  of  me,  from  the  day  that  he 
met  me  carrying  an  old  painting,  which  I  had 
picked  up.  He  had  beguiled  me  formerly  by 
bringing  parcels  of  books  under  his  arm  ;  but 
I  now  concluded  that  he  had  not  ventured 
them  in  the  public  eye.  His  footman  must 
have  brought  them  to  the  door.  For  my  part, 
having  got  rid  of  some  fopperies  which  I  had 
at  that  time,  I  was  not  going  to  commence 
others  which  I  had  never  been  guilty  of.  I 
had  seen  too  much  of  the  world  for  that ;  not 
omitting  the  one  that  he  chose  for  his  arbiter. 

Lord  Byron  knew  nothing  of  the  Fine  Arts, 
and  did  not  affect  to  care  for  them.  He  pro- 
nounced Rubens  a  dauber.  The  only  pictures 
I  remember  to  have  seen  in  his  rooms  (with 
the  exception  of  the  Italian  family  pictures, 
that  remained  in  the  houses  which  he  occu- 
pied) were  a  print  of  Jupiter  and  Antiope,  and 
another  of  his  little  daughter,  whom  he  al- 
ways mentioned  with  pride.  Pope,  before  he 
spoke  of  Handel,  applied  to  Arbuthnot  to 
know  whether  the  composer  really  deserved 
what  was  said  of  him.  It  was  after  making  a 
similar  inquiry  respecting  Mozart,  that  Lord 


LORD   BYRON.  127 

Byron  wrote  the  passage  in  his  notes  to  Don 
Juan,  giving  him  the  preference   to  Rossini. 
Rossini  was  his  real  favourite.     He  liked  his 
dash  and  animal  spirits.     All  the  best  music, 
he  said,  was  lively : — an  opinion,  in  which  few 
lovers  of  it  will  agree  with  him.     Mr.  Hazlitt, 
who  is  a  connoisseur  in  the  spirit  of  contradic- 
tion, may  think  that  he  said  this  out  of  spleen 
against  some  remark  to  the  contrary ;  but  in 
this,  as  in  other  instances,  the  critic  is  misled 
by  his  own  practice.     It  was  not  difficult  to 
discern   the   occasions  on  which  Lord  Byron 
spoke  out  of  perversity  ;  nor  when  it  was  that 
he  was  merely  hasty  and  inconsequential ;  nor 
at   what   times   he   gave  vent  to  an  habitual 
persuasion ;  that  is  to  say,  translated  his  own 
practice  and  instinct  into  some  sudden  opinion. 
Such  was  the  case  in  the  present  instance.     I 
never  knew  him  attempt  any  air  but  a  lively 
one ;  and  he  was  fondest  of  such  as  were  the 
most  blustering.     You  associated  with  it  the 
idea  of  a  stage-tyrant,  or  captain  of  banditti. 
One  day  he  was  splenetic  enough  on  the  sub- 
ject of  music.     He  said  that  all  lovers  of  music 
were  effeminate.    He  was  not  in  good  humour, 


128  LORD    BYRON, 

and  had  heard  me,  that  morning,  dabbling  on 
a  piano-forte.  This  was  to  provoke  me  to  be 
out  of  humour  myself ;  but  I  was  provoked 
enough  not  to  oblige  him.  I  was  ill,  with  an 
internal  fever  preying  upon  me,  and  full  of 
cares  of  all  sorts.  He,  the  objector  to  effemi- 
nacy, was  sitting  in  health  and  wealth,  with 
rings  on  his  fingers,  and  baby-work  to  his 
shirt ;  and  he  had  just  issued,  like  a  sultan,  out 
of  his  bath.  I  was  nevertheless  really  more 
tranquil  than  he,  ill  and  provoked  as  I  was. 
I  said  that  the  love  of  music  might  be  carried 
to  a  pitch  of  effeminacy,  like  any  other  plea- 
sure; but  that  he  would  find  it  difficult  to 
persuade  the  world,  that  Alfred  and  Epami- 
nondas,  and  Martin  Luther,  and  Frederick  the 
Second,  all  eminent  lovers  of  music,  were  effe- 
minate men.  He  made  no  answer.  I  had 
spoilt  a  stanza  in  "  Don  Juan." 

Speaking  of  "Don  Juan,"  I  will  here  ob- 
serve that  he  had  no  plan  with  regard  to  that 
poem ;  that  he  did  not  know  how  long  he 
should  make  it,  nor  what  to  do  with  his  hero. 
He  had  a  great  mind  to  make  him  die  a 
Methodist — a  catastrophe  which  he  sometimes 


LORD    BYRON.  129 

anticipated  for  himself.  I  said  I  thought  there 
was  no  reason  for  treating  either  his  hero  or 
himself  so  ill.  That  as  to  his  own  case,  he 
would  find  himself  mustering  up  his  intellec- 
tual faculties  in  good  style,  as  the  hour  came 
on,  and  there  was  something  to  do,— barring 
drugs  and  a  bit  of  delirium ;  and  with  regard 
to  Don  Juan,  he  was  a  good,  careless,  well-in- 
tentioned fellow,  (though  he  might  not  have 
liked  to  be  told  so  in  the  hearing  of  every 
body);  and  that  he  deserved  at  least  to  be 
made  a  retired  country  gentleman,  very  spe- 
culative and  tolerant,  and  fond  of  his  grand- 
children. He  lent  an  ear  to  this,  and  seemed 
to  like  it ;  but  after  all,  as  he  had  not  him- 
self died  or  retired,  and  wanted  experience  to 
draw  upon,  the  termination  of  the  poem  would 
have  depended  on  what  he  thought  the  fashion- 
able world  expected  of  it.  His  hero  in  this 
work  was  a  picture  of  the  better  part  of  his 
own  nature.  When  the  author  speaks  in  his 
own  person,  he  is  endeavouring  to  bully  him- 
self into  a  satisfaction  with  the  worse,  and 
courting  the  eulogies  of  the  "  knowing." 

This  reminds  me  of  the   cunning   way  in 

VOL.  i.  K 


1'30  LOllI)    BYRON. 

which  he  has  spoken  of  that  passion  for  money 
in  which  he  latterly  indulged.  He  says,  in 
one  of  his  most  agreeable,  off-hand  couplets  in 
"  Don  Juan,"  after  telling  us  what  a  poor  in- 
animate thing  life  has  become  for  him — 

"  So  for  a  good  old  gentlemanly  vice, 
I  think  I  shall  take  up  with  avarice." 

This  the  public  were  not  to  believe.  It  is  a 
specimen  of  the  artifice  noticed  in  another 
place.  They  were  to  regard  it  only  as  a  plea- 
santry, issuing  from  a  generous  mouth.  How- 
ever, it  was  very  true.  He  had  already  taken 
up  with  the  vice,  as  his  friends  were  too  well 
aware ;  and  this  couplet  was  at  once  to  baffle 
them  with  a  sort  of  confession,  and  to  secure 
the  public  against  a  suspicion  of  it.  It  was 
curious  to  see  what  mastery  he  suffered  the 
weakest  passions  to  have  over  him  ;  as  if  his 
public  fame  and  abstract  superiority  were  to 
bear  him  out  privately,  in  every  thing.  He 
confessed  that  he  felt  jealous  of  the  smallest 
accomplishments.  The  meaning  of  this  was, 
that  supposing  every  one  else,  in  all  proba- 
bility, to  feel  so,  you  were  to  give  him  credit 


LORD    BYRON.  131 

for  being  candid  on  a  point  which  others  con- 
cealed ;  or  if  they  were  not,  the  confession  was 
to  strike  you  as  a  piece  of  extraordinary  ac- 
knowledgment on  the  part  of  a  great  man. 
The  whole  truth  of  the  matter  was  to  be 
found  in  the  indiscriminate  admiration  he  re- 
ceived. Those  who  knew  him,  took  him  at 
his  word.  They  thought  him  so  little  above 
the  weakness,  that  they  did  not  care  to  exhibit 
any  such  accomplishment  before  him.  We  have 
been  told  of  authors  who  were  jealous  even  of 
beautiful  women,  because  they  divided  atten- 
tion. I  do  not  think  Lord  Byron  would  have 
entertained  a  jealousy  of  this  sort.  He  would 
have  thought  the  women  too  much  occupied 
with  himself.  But  he  would  infallibly  have 
been  jealous,  had  the  beautiful  woman  been  a 
wit,  or  drawn  a  circle  round  her  piano-forte. 
With  men  I  have  seen  him  hold  the  most 
childish  contests  for  superiority  ;  so  childish, 
that  had  it  been  possible  for  him  to  divest 
himself  of  a  sense  of  his  pretensions  and  public 
character,  they  would  have  exhibited  some- 
thing of  the  conciliating  simplicity  of  Gold- 
smith. He  would  then  lay  imaginary  wagers  ; 

K  2 


182  LORD    BYRON. 

and  in  a  style  which  you  would  not  have 
looked  for  in  high  life,  thrust  out  his  chin,  and 
give  knowing,  self-estimating  nods  of  the  head, 
half  nod  and  half  shake,  such  as  boys  playing 
at  chuck-farthing  give,  when  they  say,  "  Come ; 
I  tell  you  what  now."  A  fat  dandy  who 
came  upon  us  at  Genoa,  and  pretended  to 
be  younger  than  he  was,  and  to  wear  his  own 
hair,  discomposed  him  for  the  day.  He  de- 
claimed against  him  in  so  deploring  a  tone, 
and  uttered  the  word  "  wig"  so  often,  that 
my  two  eldest  boys,  who  were  in  the  next  room, 
were  obliged  to  stifle  their  laughter. 

His  jealousy  of  Wordsworth  and  others,  who 
were  not  town-poets,  was  more  creditable  to 
him,  though  he  did  not  indulge  it  in  the  most 
becoming  manner.  He  pretended  to  think 
worse  of  them  than  he  did.  He  had  the  mo- 
desty one  day  to  bring  me  a  stanza,  intended 
for  "Don  Juan,"  in  which  he  had  sneered  at 
them  all,  adding,  with  respect  to  one  of  them, 
that  nobody  but  myself  thought  highly  of  him. 
He  fancied  I  should  put  up  with  this,  for  the 
sake  of  being  mentioned  in  the  poem,  let  the 
mention  be  what  it  might ;  an  absurdity, 


LORD    BYRON. 

which  nothing  but  his  own  vanity   had  sug- 
gested.    I  told  him,  that  I  should  be  unable 
to  consider  the  introduction  of  such  a  stanza 
as  any  thing  but  an  affront,  and  that  he  had 
better  not  put  it  in.     He  said  he  would  not, 
and  kept  his  word.     I  am  now  sorry  I  did  not 
let  it  go ;  for  it  would  have  done  me  honour 
with   posterity,   far   from   what   he   intended. 
He  did  not  equally  keep  his  word,  when  he 
promised  me  to  alter  what  he  had  said  respect- 
ing the  cause  of  Mr.  Keats's  death.      But  I 
speak    more    of    this   circumstance    hereafter. 
For  Southey  he  had  as  much  contempt  as  any 
man  can  well  have  for  another,  especially  for 
one  who  can  do  him  an  injury.     He  thought 
him  a  washy  writer,  and  a  canting  politician ; 
half  a  mercenary,  and  half  a  moral  coxcomb. 
He  was  sadly  out,  however,  when  he  compared 
his  generosities  with  those  of  the  Lake  poet, 
and  gave  himself  the  preference.     Mr.  Southey, 
from  all  that  I  have  heard,  is  a  truly  generous 
man,  and  says  nothing  about  it.     Lord  Byron 
was  not  a  generous  man  ;  and,  in  what  he  did, 
he  contrived  either  to  blow  a  trumpet  before 
it  himself,  or  to  see  that  others  blew  one  for 


134  LORD    BY HON. 

him.  I  speak  of  his  conduct  latterly.  What 
he  might  have  done,  before  he  thought  fit  to 
put  an  end  to  his  doubts  respecting  the  supe- 
riority of  being  generous,  I  cannot  say ;  but 
if  you  were  to  believe  himself,  he  had  a  pro- 
pensity to  avarice  from  a  child.  At  Harrow, 
he  told  me,  he  would  save  up  his  money,  not 
as  other  boys  did,  for  the  pleasure  of  some 
great  purchase  or  jovial  expense,  but  in  order 
to  look  at  it  and  count  it.  I  was  to  believe 
as  much  of  this,  or  in  such  a  manne?,  as  to 
do  him  honour  for  the  confession  ;  but,  un- 
luckily, it  had  become  too  much  like  the  prac- 
tice of  his  middle  age,  not  to  be  believed  en- 
tirely. It  was  too  obvious  a  part  of  the  pre- 
dominant feature  in  his  character, — which  was 
an  indulgence  of  his  self-will  and  self-love 
united,  denying  himself  no  pleasure  that  could 
add  to  the  intensity  of  his  consciousness  and 
the  means  of  his  being  powerful  and  effective, 
with  a  particular  satisfaction  in  contributing 
as  little  as  possible  to  the  same  end  in  others. 
His  love  of  notoriety  was  superior  even  to  his 
love  of  money ;  which  is  giving  the  highest 
idea  that  can  be  entertained  of  it.  But  he  was 


LORD    BYRON. 

extremely  anxious  to  make  them  go  hand 
in  hand.  At  one  time  he  dashed  away  in 
England  and  got  into  debt,  because  he  thought 
expense  became  him ;  but  he  looked  to  re- 
trieving all  this,  and  more,  by  marrying  a 
fortune.  When  Shelley  lived  near  him  in 
Switzerland,  he  appeared  to  be  really  generous, 
because  he  had  a  generous  man  for  his  ad- 
mirer, and  one  whose  influence  he  felt  ex- 
tremely. Besides,  Mr.  Shelley  had  money 
himself,  or  the  expectation  of  it ;  and  he  re- 
spected him  the  more,  and  was  anxious  to  look 
well  in  his  eyes  on  that  account.  In  Italy, 
where  a  different  mode  of  life,  and  the  success 
of  Beppo  and  Don  Juan,  had  made  him  con- 
clude that  the  romantic  character  was  not 
necessary  to  fame,  he  shocked  his  companion 
one  day,  on  renewing  their  intimacy,  by  asking 
him,  whether  he  did  not  feel  a  real  respect  for 
a  wealthy  man,  or  at  least,  a  greater  respect  for 
the  rich  man  of  the  company,  than  for  any 
other  ?  Mr.  Shelley  gave  him  what  Napoleon 
would  have  called  a  "  superb  no."  It  is  true, 
the  same  question  might  have  been  put  at 
random  to  a  hundred  Englishmen;  and  all, 


136  LORD    BYRON. 

if   they    were    honest,    might  have   answered 
"  Yes  ;"   but  these  would  have  come  from  the 
middling  ranks,  where  the  possession  of  wealth 
is  associated   with  the  idea  of  cleverness  and 
industry.    Among  the  privileged  orders,  where 
riches  are   inherited,  the   estimation  is   much 
more   equivocal,   the  richest  man  there  being 
often    the    idlest    and    stupidest.      But    Mr. 
Shelley  had    as   little  respect  for   the  posses- 
sion   or   accumulation    of   wealth    under    any 
circumstances,    as    Lord   Byron    had    the    re- 
verse ;    and   he    would    give  away   hundreds 
with    as    much  zeal   for  another   man's  com- 
fort, as  the  noble  Lord  would  willingly  save 
a  guinea  even  in  securing  his  pleasures.     Per- 
haps,  at   one   period   of    his    residence   there, 
no   man    in    Italy,    certainly  no   Englishman, 
ever   contrived  to   practise   more   rakery   and 
economy   at    one    and   the    same    time. — Ita- 
lian women  are  not  averse  to  accepting  pre- 
sents, or   any  other   mark    of  kindness;    but 
they  can  do  without  them,  and  his  Lordship 
put  them  to  the  test.      Presents,  by  way  of 
showing  his  gratitude,  or  as  another  mode  of 
interchanging   delight   and   kindness   between 


LORD    BYRON.  137 

friends,  he  had  long  ceased  to  make.  I  doubt 
whether  his  fair  friend,  Madame  Guiccioli,  ever 
received  so  much  as  a  ring  or  a  shawl  from 
him.  It  is  true,  she  did  not  require  it.  She 
was  happy  to  show  her  disinterestedness  in  all 
points  unconnected  with  the  pride  of  her  at- 
tachment ;  and  I  have  as  little  doubt,  that  he 
would  assign  this  as  a  reason  for  his  conduct, 
and  say  he  was  as  happy  to  let  her  prove  it. 
But  to  be  a  poet  and  a  wit,  and  to  have  had  a 
liberal  education,  and  write  about  love  and  la- 
vishment,  and  not  to  find  it  in  his  heart,  after 
all,  to  be  able  to  put  a  friend  and  a  woman 
upon  a  footing  of  graceful  comfort  with  him 
in  so  poor  a  thing  as  a  money -matter, — these 
were  the  sides  of  his  character,  in  which  love, 
as  well  as  greatness,  found  him  wanting,  and 
in  which  it  could  discern  no  relief  to  its  wound- 
ed self-respect,  but  at  the  risk  of  a  greater  mor- 
tification. The  love  of  money,  the  pleasure  of 
receiving  it,  even  the  gratitude  he  evinced 
when  it  was  saved  him,  had  not  taught  him 
the  only  virtue  upon  which  lovers  of  money 
usually  found  their  claims  to  a  good  construc- 
tion :  —he  did  not  like  paying  a  debt,  and 


138  LORD    BYRON. 

would  undergo  pestering  and  pursuit  to  avoid 
it.  "  But  what,"  cries  the  reader,  "  becomes 
then  of  the  stories  of  his  making  presents  of 
money  and  manuscripts,  and  his  not  caring  for 
the  profits  of  his  writings,  and  his  giving 
10,0007.  to  the  Greeks  ?"  He  did  care  for  the 
profits  of  what  he  wrote,  and  he  reaped  a  great 
deal :  but,  as  I  have  observed  before,  he  cared 
for  celebrity  still  more  ;  and  his  presents,  such 
as  they  were,  were  judiciously  made  to  that 
end.  "  Good  heavens !"  said  a  fair  friend  to 
me  the  other  day,  who  knew  him  well, — "  if 
he  had  but  foreseen  that  you  would  have  given 
the  world  an  account  of  him  !  What  would  he 
not  have  done  to  cut  a  figure  in  your  eyes  !" 
As  to  the  Greeks,  the  present  of  10,0007.  was 
first  of  all  well  trumpeted  to  the  world :  it 
then  became  a  loan  of  10,0007.;  then  a  loan  of 
60007.;  and  he  told  me,  in  one  of  his  incon- 
tinent fits  of  communication  and  knowingness, 
that  he  did  not  think  he  should  "  get  off  under 
40007."  I  know  not  how  much  was  lent, 
after  all ;  but  I  have  been  told,  that  good  se- 
curity was  taken  for  it ;  and  I  was  informed 
the  other  day,  that  the  whole  money  had  been 


LORD    BYRON.  139 

repaid.  He  was  so  jealous  of  your  being  easy 
upon  the  remotest  points  connected  with  pro- 
perty, that  if  he  saw  you  ungrudging  even 
upon  so  small  a  tax  on  your  liberality  as  the 
lending  of  books,  he  would  not  the  less  fidget 
and  worry  you  in  lending  his  own.  He  con- 
trived to  let  you  feel  that  you  had  got  them, 
and  would  insinuate  that  you  had  treated  them 
carelessly,  though  he  did  not  scruple  to  make 
marks  and  dogs'-ears  in  your's.  O  Truth ! 
what  scrapes  of  portraiture  have  you  not  got 
me  into ! 

I  believe  there  did  exist  one  person  to 
whom  he  would  have  been  generous,  if  she 
pleased ;  perhaps  was  so.  At  all  events,  he 
left  her  the  bulk  of  his  property,  and  always 
spoke  of  her  with  the  greatest  esteem.  This 
was  his  sister,  Mrs.  Leigh.  He  told  me  she 
used  to  call ,  him  "  baby  Byron  !"  It  was  easy 
to  see,  that  of  the  two  persons,  she  had  by  far 
the  greater  judgment :  I  will  add,  without 
meaning  to  impeach  her  womanhood,  the  more 
masculine  sense.  She  has  recorded  him  on  his 
tomb  as  the  author  of  "  Childe  Harold,"  which 
was  not  so  judicious ;  but  this  may  have  been 


140 


LORD    BYilON. 


owing  to  a  fit  of  affectionate  spleen  at  "  Don 
Juan,"  which  she  could  not  bear,  and  (I  was 
told)  would  never  speak  of.     She  thought  he 
had  committed  his  dignity  in  it.     I  believe  she 
was  the  only  woman  for  whom  he  ever  enter- 
tained  a   real   respect;    a   feeling,  which   was 
mixed  up  perhaps  with  something  of  family 
self-love.     The  only  man  he  professed  to   en- 
tertain a  real  friendship  for,  was  Lord  Clare. 
I  conclude  that  his  Lordship  may  be  excepted 
from  the  number  of  friends  whom  he  "  libelled 
all  round." 

His   temper   was   not   good.     Reading   one 
day  in  Montaigne  the  confession  of  that  philo- 
sopher and  "  Seigneur,"  that  a  saddle  not  well 
fastened,  or  the  flapping  of  a  leather  against 
his  boot,  would  put  him  out  of  sorts  for  the 
day,   he   said   it  was   his   own    case;    and   he 
seemed  to  think  it  that  of  every  body  else  of 
any  importance,  if  people  would  but  confess 
it;    otherwise  they  were   dull   or   wanted  vi- 
gour.    For  he  was  always  mistaking  the  sub- 
tlety of  that  matter,  and  confounding  patience 
with  weakness,  because  there  was  a  weak  pa- 
tience as  well  as  a  strong  one.     But  it  was  not 


LORD    BYRON.  141 

only  in  small  things  that  he  was  "  put  out." 
I  have  seen  the  expression  of  his  countenance 
on  greater  occasions,  absolutely  festered  with 
ill-temper, — all  the  beauty  of  it  corrugated 
and  made  sore, — his  voice  at  the  same  time 
being  soft,  and  struggling  to  keep  itself  in,  as 
if  on  the  very  edge  of  endurance.  On  such 
occasions,  having  no  address,  he  did  not  know 
how  to  let  himself  be  extricated  from  his  po- 
sition ;  and  if  I  found  him  in  this  state,  I 
contrived  to  make  a  few  remarks,  as  serious  as 
possible,  on  indifferent  subjects,  and  so  come 
away.  An  endeavour  to  talk  him  out  of  it, 
as  a  weakness,  he  might  have  had  reason  to 
resent : — sympathy  would  probably  have  drawn 
upon  you  a  discussion  of  matters  too  petty  for 
your  respect ;  and  gaiety  would  have  been 
treated  as  an  assumption,  necessary  to  be  put 
down  by  sarcasms,  which  it  would  have  been 
necessary  to  put  down  in  their  turn.  There 
was  no  living  with  these  eternal  assumptions 
and  inequalities.  When  he  knew  me  in  Eng- 
land, independent  and  able  to  do  him  service, 
he  never  ventured  upon  a  raillery.  In  Italy, 
he  soon  began  to  treat  me  with  it ;  and  I  was 


142  LORD    BYRON. 

obliged,  for  both  our  sakes,  to  tell  him  I  did 
not  like  it,  and  that  he  was  too  much  in 
earnest.  Raillery,  indeed,  unless  it  is  managed 
with  great  delicacy,  and  borne  as  well  by  him 
that  uses  it  as  it  is  expected  to  be  borne  by  its 
object,  is  unfit  for  grown  understandings.  It 
is  a  desperate  substitute  for  animal  spirits ;  and 
no  more  resembles  them,  than  a  jostle  resembles 
a  dance.  Like  boys  fighting  in  sport,  some  real 
blow  is  given,  and  the  rest  is  fighting  in  earnest. 
A  passing,  delicate  raillery  is  another  matter, 
and  may  do  us  both  a  good  and  a  pleasure ;  but 
it  requires  exquisite  handling.  You  can  ima- 
gine it  is  Sir  Richard  Steele,  or  Garth,  or  any 
other  good-natured  wit,  who  is  not  in  the  habit 
of  objecting.  My  friend  Charles  Lamb  has 
rallied  me,  and  made  me  love  him  the  more. 
So  has  Mr.  Shelley.  But  in  a  man  of  more 
doubtful  candour  or  benevolence,  in  Addison 
for  instance,  with  his  natural  reserve  and  his 
born  jiarsonism,  you  would  begin  to  suspect 
the  motive  to  it ;  and  in  the  case  of  Swift  or 
Johnson,  it  no  doubt  much  oftener  produced 
awkward  retaliations,  than  biographers  have 
thought  fit  to  record. 


LORD    BYRON.  143 

If  Lord  Byron  had  been  a  man  of  address, 
he  would  have  been  a  kinder  man.  He  never 
heartily  forgave  either  you  or  himself  for  his 
deficiency  on  this  point ;  and  hence  a  good  deal 
of  his  ill-temper,  and  his  carelessness  of  your 
feelings.  By  any  means,  fair  or  foul,  he  was 
to  make  up  for  the  disadvantage  ;  and  with 
all  his  exaction  of  conventional  propriety  from 
others,  he  could  set  it  at  nought  in  his  own 
conduct  in  the  most  remarkable  manner.  He 
had  an  incontinence,  I  believe  unique,  in  talk- 
ing of  his  affairs,  and  showing  you  other  peo- 
ple's letters.  He  would  even  make  you  pre»- 
sents  of  them ;  and  I  have  accepted  one  or 
two  that  they  might  go  no  farther.  But  I  have 
mentioned  this  before.  If  his  five-hundred 
confidants,  by  a  retinence  as  remarkable  as  his 
laxity,  had  not  kept  his  secrets  better  than  he 
did  himself,  the  very  devil  might  have  been 
played  with  I  know  not  how  many  people. 
But  there  was  always  this  saving  reflection 
to  be  made,  that  the  man  who  could  be  guilty 
of  such  extravagances  for  the  sake  of  making 
an  impression,  might  be  guilty  of  exaggerat- 
ing or  inventing  what  astonished  you ;  and  in- 


144  LORD   BYRON. 

deed,  though  he  was  a  speaker  of  the  truth 
on  ordinary  occasions, — that  is  to  say,  he  did 
not  tell  you  he  had  seen  a  dozen  horses,  when 
he  had  seen  only  two, — yet,  as  he  professed  not 
to  value  the  truth  when  in  the  way  of  his  ad- 
vantage, (and  there  was  nothing  he  thought 
more  to  his  advantage  than  making  you  stare 
at  him,)  the  persons  who  were  liable  to  suffer 
from  his  incontinence,  had  all  the  right  in  the 
world  to  the  benefit  of  this  consideration. 

His  superstition  was  remarkable.  I  do 
not  mean  in  the  ordinary  sense,  because 
it  was  superstition,  but  because  it  was  petty 
and  old-womanish.  He  believed  in  the  ill- 
luck  of  Fridays,  and  was  seriously  discon- 
certed if  any  thing  was  to  be  done  on  that 
frightful  day  of  the  week.  Had  he  been  a 
Roman,  he  would  have  startled  at  crows, 
while  he  made  a  jest  of  augurs.  He  used 
to  tell  a  story  of  somebody's  meeting  him, 
while  in  Italy,  in  St.  James's-street.  The 
least  and  most  childish  of  superstitions  may, 
it  is  true,  find  subtle  corners  of  warrant  in 
the  greatest  minds ;  but  as  the  highest  pic- 
tures in  Lord  Byron's  poetry  were  imitations, 


LORD    BYRON.  145 

so  in  the  smallest  of  his  personal  superstitions 
he  was  maintained  by  something  not  his  own. 
His  turn  of  mind  was  material :  egotism,  and 
some    remarkable    experiences,    had   given  it 
a  compulsory   twist    the   other   way;    but  it 
never  grew  kindly  or  loftily  in  that  quarter. 
Hence  his  taking  refuge  from  uneasy  thoughts, 
in  sarcasm,  and  trifling,  and  notoriety.     What 
there  is  of  a  good-natured  philosophy  in  "  Don 
Juan"  was  not  foreign  to  his  wishes;  but  it 
was    the   commonplace   of  the  age,   repeated 
with  an  air  of  discovery  by  the  noble  Lord, 
and  as   ready   to   be  thrown  in  the  teeth  of 
those  from  whom  he  took  it,  provided  any 
body  laughed  at  them.     His  soul  might  well 
have  been   met  in   St.   James's-street,  for  in 
the  remotest  of  his  poetical  solitudes  it  was 
there.     As  to  those  who  attribute  the  super- 
stition of  men  of  letters  to  infidelity,  and  then 
object  to  it  for  being  inconsistent,  because  it 
is  credulous,  there  is  no  greater  inconsistency 
than  their  own ;  for  as  it  is  the  very  essence 
of  infidelity  to  doubt,  so,  according  to  the  na- 
ture it  inhabits,  it  may  as  well  doubt  whether 
such  and  such  things  do  not  exist,  as  whether 
VOL.  i.  L 


146  LORD    BYRON. 

they  do :  whereas,  on  the  other  hand,  belief  in 
particular  dogmas,  by  the  very  nature  of  its 
tie,  is  precluded  from  this  uncertainty,  per- 
haps at  the  expense  of  being  more  foolishly 
certain. 

It  has  been  thought  by  some,  that  there  was 
madness  in  his  composition.  He  himself  talked 
sometimes  as  if  he  feared  it  would  come  upon 
him.  It  was  difficult,  in  his  most  serious  mo- 
ments, to  separate  what  he  spoke  out  of  con- 
viction, and  what  he  said  for  effect.  In  mo- 
ments of  ill-health,  especially  when  jaded  and 
overwrought  by  the  united  effects  of  composi- 
tion, and  drinking,  and  sitting  up,  he  might 
have  had  nervous  misgivings  to  that  effect ;  as 
more  people  perhaps  are  accustomed  to  have, 
than  choose  to  talk  about  it.  But  I  never  saw 
any  thing  more  mad  in  his  conduct,  than  what 
I  have  just  been  speaking  of;  and  there  was 
enough  in  the  nature  of  his  position  to  account 
for  extravagances  in  him,  that  would  not  have 
attained  to  that  head  under  other  circum- 
stances. If  every  extravagance  of  which  men 
are  guilty,  were  to  be  pronounced  madness, 
the  world  would  be  nothing  but  the  Bedlam 


LORD    BYRON.  147 

which  some  have  called  it;  and  then  the 
greatest  madness  of  all  would  be  the  greatest 
rationality ;  which,  according  to  others,  it  is. 
There  is  no  end  to  these  desperate  modes  of 
settling  and  unsettling  every  thing  at  a  jerk. 
There  was  great  perversity  and  self-will  in 
Lord  Byron's  composition.  It  arose  from 
causes  which  it  would  do  honour  to  the 
world's  rationality  to  consider  a  little  closer, 
and  of  which  I  shall  speak  presently.  This 
it  was,  together  with  extravagant  homage  paid 
him,  that  pampered  into  so  regal  a  size  every 
inclination  which  he  chose  to  give  way  to. 
But  he  did  not  take  a  hawk  for  a  handsaw ;  nor 
will  the  world  think  him  deficient  in  brain. 
Perhaps  he  may  be  said  to  have  had  some- 
thing, in  little,  of  the  madness  which  was 
brought  upon  the  Roman  emperors  in  great. 
His  real  pretensions  were  mixed  up  with  ima- 
ginary ones,  and  circumstances  contributed  to 
give  the  whole  a  power,  or  at  least  a  presence 
in  the  eyes  of  men,  which  his  temperament 
was  too  feeble  to  manage  properly.  But  it  is 
not  in  the  light  of  a  madman  that  the  world 
will  ever  seriously  consider  a  man  whose  pro- 

L  2 


148  LORD    BYRON. 

ductions  delight  them,  and  whom  they  place 
in  the  rank  of  contributors  to  the  stock  of  wit. 
It  is  not  as  the  madman  witty,  but  as  the  wit, 
injured  by  circumstances  considered  to  be  ra- 
tional, that  Lord  Byron  is  to  be  regarded.  If 
his  wit  indeed  would  not  have  existed  without 
these  circumstances,  then  it  would  only  show 
us  that  the  perversest  things  have  a  tendency 
to  right  themselves,  or  produce  their  ultimate 
downfal :  and  so  far,  I  would  as  little  deny 
that  his  Lordship  had  a  spice  of  madness  in 
him,  as  I  deny  that  he  had  not  every  excuse 
for  what  was  unpleasant  in  his  composition; 
which  was  none  of  his  own  making.  So  far, 
also,  I  would  admit  that  a  great  part  of  the 
world  are  as  mad  as  some  have  declared  all  the 
rest  to  be;  that  is  to  say,  that  although  they 
are  rational  enough  to  perform  the  common 
offices  of  life,  and  even  to  persuade  the  rest  of 
mankind  that  their  pursuits  and  passions  are 
what  they  should  be,  they  are  in  reality  but 
half  rational  beings,  contradicted  in  the  very 
outset  of  existence,  and  dimly  struggling 
through  life  with  the  perplexity  sown  within 
them. 


LORD    BYRON.  149 

To  explain  myself  very  freely.  I  look  upon 
Lord  Byron  as  an  excessive  instance  of  what 
we  see  in  hundreds  of  cases  every  day ;  namely, 
of  the  unhappy  consequences  of  a  parentage 
that  ought  never  to  have  existed, — of  the  per- 
verse and  discordant  humours  of  those  who 
were  the  authors  of  his  being.  His  father  was 
a  rake  of  the  wildest  description ;  his  mother 
a  violent  woman,  very  unfit  to  improve  the 
offspring  of  such  a  person.  She  would  vent 
her  spleen  by  loading  her  child  with  reproaches ; 
and  add,  by  way  of  securing  their  bad  effect, 
that  he  would  be  as  great  a  reprobate  as  his 
father.  Thus  did  his  parents  embitter  his  na- 
ture :  thus  they  embittered  his  memory  of 
them,  contradicted  his  beauty  with  deformity, 
and  completed  the  mischances  of  his  existence. 
Perhaps  both  of  them  had  a  goodness  at  heart, 
which  had  been  equally  perplexed.  It  is  not 
that  individuals  are  to  blame,  or  that  human 
nature  is  bad ;  but  that  experience  has  not  yet 
made  it  wise  enough.  Animal  beauty  they 
had  at  least  a  sense  of.  In  this  our  poet  was 
conceived;  but  contradiction  of  all  sorts  was 
superadded,  and  he  was  born  handsome,  wilful, 


150  LORD    BYRON. 

and  lame.  A  happy  childhood  might  have 
corrected  his  evil  tendencies;  but  he  had  it 
not;  and  the  upshot  was,  that  he  spent  an 
uneasy  over-excited  life,  and  that  society  have 
got  an  amusing  book  or  two  by  his  misfortunes. 
The  books  may  even  help  to  counteract  the 
spreading  of  such  a  misfortune ;  and  so  far  it 
may  be  better  for  society  that  he  lived.  But 
this  is  a  rare  case.  Thousands  of  such  mistakes 
are  round  about  us,  with  nothing  to  show  for 
them  but  complaint  and  unhappiness. 

Lord  Byron's  face  was  handsome;  eminently 
so  in  some  respects.  He  had  a  mouth  and  chin 
fit  for  Apollo;  and  when  I  first  knew  him, 
there  were  both  lightness  and  energy  all  over 
his  aspect.  But  his  countenance  did  not  im- 
prove with  age,  and  there  were  always  some 
defects  in  it.  The  jaw  was  too  big  for  the  up- 
per part.  It  had  all  the  wilfulness  of  a  despot 
in  it.  The  animal  predominated  over  the  in- 
tellectual part  of  his  head,  inasmuch  as  the 
face  altogether  was  large  in  proportion  to  the 
skull.  The  eyes  also  were  set  too  near  one 
another ;  and  the  nose,  though  handsome  in 
itself,  had  the  appearance  when  you  saw  it 


LORD    BYRON.  151 

closely  in  front,  of  being  grafted  on  the  face, 
rather  than  growing  properly  out  of  it.  His 
person  was  very  handsome,  though  terminat- 
ing in  lameness,  and  tending  to  fat  and  effemi- 
nacy; which  makes  me  remember  what  a  hos- 
tile fair  one  objected  to  him,  namely,  that  he 
had  little  beard ;  a  fault  which,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  thought  by  another  lady,  not  hos- 
tile, to  add  to  the  divinity  of  his  aspect, — im- 
berbis  Apollo.  His  lameness  was  only  in  one 
foot,  the  left ;  and  it  was  so  little  visible  to 
casual  notice,  that  as  he  lounged  about  a  room 
(which  he  did  in  such  a  manner  as  to  screen  it) 
it  was  hardly  perceivable.  But  it  was  a  real 
and  even  a  sore  lameness.  Much  walking  upon 
it  fevered  and  hurt  it.  It  was  a  shrunken  foot, 
a  little  twisted.  This  defect  unquestionably 
mortified  him  exceedingly,  and  helped  to  put 
sarcasm  and  misanthropy  into  his  taste  of  life. 
Unfortunately,  the  usual  thoughtlessness  of 
schoolboys  made  him  feel  it  bitterly  at  Har- 
row. He  would  wake,  and  find  his  leg  in  a 
tub  of  water.  The  reader  will  see,  in  the  cor- 
respondence at  the  end  of  this  memoir,  how 
he  felt  it,  whenever  it  was  libelled;  and  in 


152  LORD    BYRON. 

Italy,  the  only  time  I  ever  knew  it  mentioned, 
he  did  not  like  the  subject,  and  hastened  to 
change  it.  His  handsome  person  so  far  ren- 
dered the  misfortune  greater,  as  it  pictured 
to  him  all  the  occasions  on  which  he  might 
have  figured  in  the  eyes  of  company;  and 
doubtless  this  was  a  great  reason  why  he 
had  no  better  address.  On  the  other  hand, 
instead  of  losing  him  any  real  regard  or  ad- 
miration, his  lameness  gave  a  touching  cha- 
racter to  both.  Certainly  no  reader  would 
have  liked  him,  or  woman  loved  him,  the 
less,  for  the  thought  of  this  single  contrast 
to  his  superiority.  But  the  very  defect  had 
taught  him  to  be  impatient  with  deficiency. 
Good  God !  when  I  think  of  these  things,  and 
of  the  common  weaknesses  of  society,  as  at 
present  constituted,  I  feel  as  if  I  could  shed 
tears  over  the  most  willing  of  my  resentments, 
much  more  over  the  most  unwilling,  and  such 
as  I  never  intended  to  speak  of ;  nor  could  ary 
thing  have  induced  me  to  give  a  portrait  of 
Lord  Byron  and  his  infirmities,  if  I  had  not 
been  able  to  say  at  the  end  of  it,  that  his  faults 
were  not  his  own,  and  that  we  must  seek  the 


LOUD   BYRON.  153 

causes  of  them  in  mistakes  common  to  us  all. 
What  is  delightful  to  us  in  his  writings  will 
still  remain  so,  if  we  are  wise ;  and  what  ought 
not  to  be,  will  not  only  cease  to  be  perilous,  but 
be  useful.  Faults  which  arise  from  an  exube- 
rant sociality,  like  those  of  Burns,  may  safely 
be  left  to  themselves.  They  at  once  explain 
themselves  by  their  natural  candour,  and  carry 
an  advantage  with  them ;  because  any  thing  is 
advantageous  in  the  long  run  to  society,  which 
tends  to  break  up  their  selfishness.  *  But  doc- 
trines, or  half-doctrines,  or  whatever  else  they 
may  be,  which  tend  to  throw  individuals  upon 
themselves,  and  overcast  them  at  the  same 
time  with  scorn  and  alienation,  it  is  as  well  to 
see  traced  to  their  sources.  In  comparing 
notes,  humanity  gets  wise ;  and  certainly  the 
wiser  it  gets,  it  will  not  be  the  less  modest  or 
humane,  whether  it  has  to  find  fault,  or  to  cri- 
ticise the  fault-finder. 

I  believe  if  any  body  could  have  done  good 
to  Lord  Byron,  it  was  Goethe  and  his  corre- 
spondence. It  was  a  pity  he  did  not  live  to 
have  more  of  it.  Goethe  might  possibly  have 
enabled  him,  acs  he  wished  he  could,  "  to  know 


154  LORD   BYRON. 

himself,"  and  do  justice  to  the  yearnings  after 
the  good  and  beautiful  inseparable  from  the 
nature  of  genius.  But  the  danger  was,  that 
he  would  have  been  influenced  as  much  by 
the  rank  and  reputation  of  that  great  man,  as 
by  the  reconciling  nobleness  of  his  philosophy; 
and  personal  intercourse  with  him  would  have 
spoilt  all.  Lord  Byron's  nature  was  mixed 
up  with  too  many  sophistications  to  receive 
a  proper  impression  from  any  man :  and  he 
would  have  been  jealous,  if  he  once  took  it  in 
his  head  that  the  other  was  thought  to  be  his 
superior. 

Lord  Byron  had  no  conversation,  properly 
speaking.  He  could  not  interchange  ideas  or 
information  with  you,  as  a  man  of  letters  is 
expected  to  do.  His  thoughts  required  the 
concentration  of  silence  and  study  to  bring 
them  to  a  head  ;  and  they  deposited  the  amount 
in  the  shape  of  a  stanza.  His  acquaintance 
with  books  was  very  circumscribed.  The  same 
personal  experience,  however,  upon  which  he 
very  properly  drew  for  his  authorship,  might 
have  rendered  him  a  companion  more  interest- 
ing by  far  than  men  who  could  talk  better : 


LORD    BYRON.  155 

and  the  great  reason  why  his  conversation  disap- 
pointed you  was,  not  that  he  had  not  any  thing 
to  talk  about,  but  that  he  was  haunted  with  a 
perpetual  affectation,  and  could  not  talk  sin- 
cerely. It  was  by  fits  only  that  he  spoke  with 
any  gravity,  or  made  his  extraordinary  disclo- 
sures ;  and  at  no  time  did  you  well  know  what 
to  believe.  The  rest  was  all  quip  and  crank, 
not  of  the  pleasantest  kind,  and  equally  distant 
from  simplicity  or  wit.  The  best  thing  to  say 
of  it  was,  that  he  knew  playfulness  to  be  con- 
sistent with  greatness  ;  and  the  worst,  that  he 
thought  every  thing  in  him  was  great,  even  to 
his  vulgarities. 

Mr.  Shelley  said  of  him,  that  he  never  made 
you  laugh  to  your  own  content.  This,  how- 
ever, was  said  latterly,  after  my  friend  had 
been  disappointed  by  a  close  intimacy.  Mr. 
Shelley's  opinion  of  his  natural  powers  in  every 
respect  was  great ;  and  there  is  reason  to  be- 
lieve, that  Lord  Byron  never  talked  with  any 
man  to  so  much  purpose  as  he  did  with  him. 
He  looked  upon  him  as  his  most  admiring 
listener;  and  probably  was  never  less  under 
the  influence  of  affectation.  If  he  could  have 


156  LOUD    BYRON. 

got  rid  of  this  and  his  title,  he  would  have 
talked  like  a  man  ;  not  like  a  mere  man  of  the 
town,  or  a  great  spoilt  schoolboy.  It  is  not  to 
be  concluded,  that  his  jokes  were  not  now  and 
then  very  happy,  or  that  admirers  of  his  Lord- 
ship, who  paid  him  visits,  did  not  often  go 
away  more  admiring.  I  am  speaking  of  his 
conversation  in  general,  and  of  the  impression 
it  made  upon  you,  compared  with  what  was  to 
be  expected  from  a  man  of  wit  and  experience. 

He  had  a  delicate  white  hand,  of  which  he 
was  proud  ;  and  he  attracted  attention  to  it  by 
rings.  He  thought  a  hand  of  this  description 
almost  the  only  mark  remaining  now-a-days  of 
a  gentleman ;  of  which  it  certainly  is  not,  nor 
of  a  lady  either ;  though  a  coarse  one  implies 
handiwork.  He  often  appeared  holding  a 
handkerchief,  upon  which  his  jewelled  fingers 
lay  imbedded,  as  in  a  picture.  He  was  as  fond 
of  fine  linen  as  a  quaker ;  and  had  the  remnant 
of  his  hair  oiled  and  trimmed  with  all  the 
anxiety  of  a  Sardanapalus. 

The  visible  character  to  which  this  effemi- 
nacy gave  rise  appears  to  have  indicated  itself 
as  early  as  his  travels  in  the  Levant,  where  the 


LORD   BYRON.  157 

Grand  Signior  is  said  to  have  taken  him  for  a 
woman  in  disguise.  But  he  had  tastes  of  a 
more  masculine  description.  He  was  fond  of 
swimming  to  the  last,  and  used  to  push  out 
to  a  good  distance  in  the  Gulf  of  Genoa.  He 
was  also,  as  I  have  before  mentioned,  a  good 
horseman  ;  and  he  liked  to  have  a  great  dog  or 
two  about  him,  which  is  not  a  habit  observable 
in  timid  men.  Yet  I  doubt  greatly  whether 
he  was  a  man  of  courage.  I  suspect,  that  per- 
sonal anxiety,  coming  upon  a  constitution  un- 
wisely treated,  had  no  small  hand  in  hastening 
his  death  in  Greece. 

The  story  of  his  bold  behaviour  at  sea  in  a 
voyage  to  Sicily,  and  of  Mr.  Shelley's  timidity, 
is  just  reversing  what  1  conceive  would  have 
been  the  real  state  of  the  matter,  had  the 
voyage  taken  place.  The  account  is  an  im- 
pudent fiction.  Nevertheless,  he  volunteered 
voyages  by  sea,  when  he  might  have  eschewed 
them  :  and  yet  the  same  man  never  got  into  a 
coach  without  being  afraid.  In  short,  he  was 
the  contradiction  his  father  and  mother  had 
made  him.  To  lump  together  some  more  of 
his  personal  habits,  in  the  style  of  old  Aubrey, 


158  LORD    BYRON. 

he  spelt  affectedly,  swore  somewhat,  had  the 
Northumbrian  burr  in  his  speech,  did  not  like 
to  see  women  eat,  and  would  merrily  say  that 
he  had  another  reason  for  not  liking  to  dine 
with  them ;  which  was,  that  they  always  had 
the  wings  of  the  chicken. 
For  the  rest, 

"  Ask  you  why  Byron  broke  through  every  rule  ? 
'Twas  all  for  fear  the  knaves  should  call  him  fool." 

He  has  added  another  to  the  list  of  the  Whar- 
tons  and  Buckinghams,  though  his  vices  were 
in  one  respect  more  prudent,  his  genius  greater, 
and  his  end  a  great  deal  more  lucky.  Perverse 
from  his  birth,  educated  under  personal  disad- 
vantages, debauched  by  ill  companions,  and 
perplexed  between  real  and  false  pretensions, 
the  injuries  done  to  his  nature  were  completed 
by  a  success,  too  great  even  for  the  genius  he 
possessed ;  and  as  his  life  was  never  so  unfor- 
tunate as  when  it  appeared  to  be  most  other- 
wise, so  nothing  could  happen  more  seasonably 
for  him,  or  give  him  what  he  would  most  have 
desired  under  any  other  circumstances,  than 
his  death. 


LORD    BYRON.  159 

A  variety  of  other  recollections  of  Lord 
Byron  have  been  suggested  to  me  by  the  ac- 
counts of  him  hitherto  published ;  which  I 
accordingly  proceed  to  notice.  They  are,  for 
the  most  part,  ludicrously  erroneous ;  but  the 
examination  of  them  will  furnish  us  with  the 
truth.  They  may  be  divided  into  five  classes : 
— those  which  really  contain  something  both 
true  and  new  respecting  him ;  those  that  con- 
tain two  or  three  old  truths  vamped  up  in 
a  popular  manner  to  sell ;  thirdly,  criticisms 
upon  his  genius,  written  with  more  or  less  good 
faith;  fourthly,  compilations  containing  all 
that  could  be  scraped  together  respecting 
him,  true  or  false ;  and  fifthly,  pure  impudent 
fictions. 

Of  the  last  class  is  an  account  of  a  pretend- 
ed Voyage  to  Sicily,  which  does  not  contain  a 
word  of  truth  from  beginning  to  end. 

Of  the  fourth,  the  most  conspicuous  is,  the 
Life  and  Times,  a  jovial  farrago  in  four  vo- 
lumes, written  by  as  unparticular  a  fellow  as 
one  should  wish  to  see  with  a  pair  of  scissors 
in  his  hand. 

The  best  among  the  third  is  a  volume  by 


160  LORD   BYRON. 

Sir  Egerton  Brydges,  entitled  "  Letters  on  the 
Character  and  Poetical  Genius  of  Lord  Byron." 
They  are  more  elaborate  than  profound;  but 
not  without  insight  into  the  matter ;  nor  un- 
informed, perhaps,  by  a  certain  sympathy  with 
the  aristocratical  as  well  as  poetical  pretensions 
of  the  noble  Bard ;  a  feeling,  of  which  his 
Lordship  would  have  been  quicker  to  accept 
the  compliment,  than  acknowledge  the  reci- 
procity. 

A  "  Life  and  Genius"  by  "  Sir  Cosmo  Gor- 
don," stood  at  the  head  of  the  second  class, 
and  was  a  quick,  little,  good-humoured  supply 
for  the  market,  remarkable  for  the  conscien- 
tiousness of  its  material. 

The  only  publications  that  contained  any 
thing  at  once  new  and  true  respecting  Lord 
Byron  were,  Dollars  Recollections,  the  Con- 
versations by  Captain  Medwin,  and  Parry's  and 
Gamba's  Accounts  of  his  Last  Days.  A  good 
deal  of  the  real  character  of  his  Lordship, 
though  not  always  as  the  writer  viewed  it, 
may  be  gathered  from  most  of  them  ;  particu- 
larly the  first  two.  Parry's  is  a  more  respecta- 
ble book,  than  the  vulgar  character  of  the  man, 


LORD    BYRON.  161 

and  his  pot-house  buffoonery  upon  Mr.  Ben- 
tham,  would  lead  us  to  suppose ;  and  Conte 
Pietro  Gamba  is  ever  the  gentleman,  worthy 
of  all  credit.  The  frontispiece  to  Mr.  Parry's 
book  presents  us  with  a  whole-length  figure 
of  Lord  Byron,  very  like  his  usual  style  of 
dress  and  appearance,  after  he  had  grown  thin 
again.  This  portrait  of  him  for  his  latter 
days  (though  rather  in  general  aspect  than 
countenance),  the  portrait  of  him  by  Phillips 
for  his  younger,  and  a  full-length  silhouette 
published  by  Ackermann,  for  the  turn  of  his 
expression  and  figure  when  at  the  fattest,  ex- 
hibit the  three  resemblances  of  him  the  most 
to  be  relied  on.  But  "  the  Major's  book"  is 
that  of  an  humble  retainer,  grateful  for  con- 
descension; and  Conte  Pietro  modestly  pro- 
fesses to  be  nothing  but  an  adherent. 

Dallas,  who  was  a  sort  of  lay-priest,  errs 
from  being  half-witted.  He  must  have  tired 
Lord  Byron  to  death  with  blind  beggings  of 
the  question,  and  solemn  mistakes.  The  wild 
poet  ran  against  him,  and  scattered  his  facul- 
ties. To  the  last  he  does  not  seem  to  have 
made  up  his  mind,  whether  his  Lordship  was 

VOL.  I.  M 


162  LORD    BYRON. 

Christian  or  Atheist.  I  can  settle  at  least  a 
part  of  that  dilemma.  Christian  he  certainly 
was  not.  He  neither  wrote  nor  talked  as  any 
Christian,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word, 
would  have  done:  and  as  to  the  rest,  the 
strength  of  his  belief  probably  varied  accord- 
ing to  his  humour,  and  was  at  all  times  as 
undecided  and  uneasy,  as  the  lights  hitherto 
obtained  by  mere  reason  were  calculated  to  ren- 
der it.  The  companion,  of  whom  he  used  to 
entertain  the  highest  opinion,  he  took  to  be  an 
Atheist.  It  is  remarkable,  that  when  at  Col- 
lege, he  had  a  similar  respect  for  another.  But 
I  have  known  him,  after  the  death  of  the  for- 
mer, and  when  he  suspected  that  the  opinion 
had  not  been  reciprocal,  reproach  his  memory 
with  the  doctrine. 

The  following  is  an  instance  of  the  way  in 
which  Mr.  Dallas  takes  things  for  granted. 
"  In  vain,"  says  he,  "  was  Lord  Byron  led  into 
the  defiance  of  the  sacred  writings ;  there  are 
passages  in  his  letters  and  in  his  works,  which 
show,  that  religion  might  have  been  in  his  soul. 
Could  he  cite  the  following  lines  and  resist  the 
force  of  them  ?  It  is  true  that  he  marks  them 


LORD    BYRON.  1  6*3 

for  the  beauty  of  the  verse,  but  no  less  for  the 
sublimity  of  the  conceptions  ;  and  I  cannot  but 
hope,  that  had  he  lived,  he  would  have  proved 
another  instance  of  genius  bowing  to  the  power 
of  truth. 

"  Dim  as  the  borrow'd  beams  of  moon  and  stars 
To  lonely,  wandering,  weary  travellers, 
Is  reason  to  the  soul. — And  as  on  high 
Those  lonely  fires  discover  but  the  sky, 
Not  light  us  here  ;  so  reason's  glimmering  ray 
Was  lent,  not  to  assure  our  doubtful  way, 
But  guide  us  upwards  to  a  better  day. 
And  as  those  nightly  tapers  disappear 
When  day's  bright  lord  ascends  our  hemisphere  ; 
So  pale  grows  reason  at  religion's  sight, 
So  dies,  and  so  dissolves,  in  supernatural  light." 

DRYDEN — Quoted  from  The  Liberal. 

Now,  the  passage  here  quoted  was  quoted  by 
myself,  one  of  those  "atheists  and  scoffers," 
according  to  Mr.  Dallas,  by  whom  "  he  was  led 
into  defiance  of  the  sacred  writings." 

There  is  a  favourite  and  foolish  saying,  "  Ex 
uno  disce  omnes"  which  if  Mr.  Dallas  were  to 
be  judged  by,  according  to  his  fondness  for 
such  sayings,  his  whole  book  would  be  pro- 
nounced a  parcel  of  lies. 

M  2 


164  LORD    BYRON. 

Captain  Medwin  quotes  the  saying,  and 
makes  an  unfounded  assertion  at  one  and  the 
same  time.  "To  give  the  reader,"  says  he, 
"  an  idea  of  the  stories  circulated  and  believed 
about  Lord  Byron,  I  will  state  one,  as  a  spe- 
cimen of  the  rest,  which  I  heard  the  other 
day:— 

"  '  Lord  Byron,  who  is  an  execrably  bad 
horseman,  was  riding  one  evening  in  the 
Brenta,  spouting  *  Metastasio  ; '  a  Venetian, 
passing  in  a  close  carriage  at  the  time,  laughed 
at  his  bad  Italian  ;  upon  which  his  Lor*dship 
horsewhipped  him,  and  threw  a  card  in  at  the 
window.  The  nobleman  took  no  notice  of  the 
insult.' — Lord  Byron  was  an  excellent  horse- 
man, never  read  a  line  of  *  Metastasio,'  and 
pronounced  Italian  like  a  native.  He  must 
have  been  remarkably  ingenious  to  horse- 
whip in  a  close  carriage,  and  find  a  nobleman 
who  pocketed  the  affront !  But  '  ex  uno  disce 
(mines' "  Vol.  i. 

Now  that  Lord  Byron  was  an  excellent 
horseman,  is  true: — that  he  never  read  a  line 
of  "  Metastasio,"  I  doubt,  and  should  have 
doubted  it,  if  he  had  said  as  much  ;  for  "  Me- 


LOUD    BYRON.  165 

tastasio,"  an  author  who  had  obtained  great 
reputation  with  no  very  great  genius,  was  pre- 
cisely the  sort  of  man  to  pique  his  curiosity  ;  and 
he  must  often  have  fallen  in  his  way  : — but  that 
he  "  pronounced  Italian  like  a  native,"  I  deny 
without  fear  of  contradiction  from  any  body 
who  is  at  all  acquainted  with  that  language. 
He  spoke  it  fluently ;  but  his  pronunciation 
was  as  poor  as  that  of  most  foreigners,  and 
worse  than  many  ;  for  he  scarcely  opened  his 
mouth. 

Captain  Medwin  afterwards  tells  us  that  the 
noble  poet's  "  voice  had  a  flexibility,  a  variety 
in  its  tones,  a  power  and  a  pathos  beyond  any 
I  ever  heard." — This  is  harmless,  as  an  instance 
of  the  effect  which  his  Lordship  had  upon  the 
Captain ;  but,  from  all  I  ever  heard  of  it,  I 
should  form  a  very  different  judgment.  His 
voice,  as  far  as  I  was  acquainted  with  it,  though 
not  incapable  of  loudness,  nor  unmelodious  in 
its  deeper  tones,  was  confined.  He  made  an 
effort  when  he  threw  it  out.  The  sound  of 
it  in  ordinary,  except  when  he  laughed,  was 
pretty  and  lugubrious.  He  spoke  inwardly, 
and  slurred  over  his  syllables,  perhaps  in  order 


166  LORD    BYRON. 

to  hide  the  bwr.  In  short,  it  was  as  much 
the  reverse  of  any  thing  various  and  power- 
ful, as  his  enunciation  was  of  any  thing  arti- 
culate. But  I  do  not  know  what  passion 
might  have  made  of  it.  The  few  times  I  saw 
him  in  a  state  of  violent  emotion,  it  was  lower 
than  ever.  I  can  imagine  him  to  have  been 
loud  in  reciting  a  declamation,  if  he  chose  to 
be  so.  He  could  be  loud  in  singing;  and 
he  then  threw  out  at  once  the  best  and  most 
powerful  tones  in  his  voice;  but  the  effect 
(as  I  have  already  described  it)  had  always 
an  appearance  of  effort.  After  all,  there  may 
have  been  greater  strength  in  his  voice  than 
it  was  my  chance  to  witness ;  but  the  "  flex- 
ibility," and  the  "variety  of  tones,"  to  say 
nothing  of  the  pathos,  were  assuredly  in  the 
Captain's  imagination. 

Next  comes  a  mistake  on  a  more  painful 
subject.  Captain  Medwin,  in  describing  the 
exhumation  of  Mr.  Shelley's  remains,  has  the 
following  passage : — "  As  a  foreground  to  this 
picture  appeared  as  extraordinary  a  group. 
Lord  Byron  and  Mr.  Trelawney  were  seen 
standing  over  the  burning  pile,  with  some  of 


LORD    BYRON.  167 

the  soldiers  of  the  guard;  and  Leigh  Hunt, 
whose  feelings  and  nerves  could  not  carry  him 
through  the  scene  of  horror,  lying  back  in  the 
carriage, — the  four  post-horses  ready  to  drop 
with  the  intensity  of  the  noon-day  sun." — I 
have  noticed  this  misrepresentation  before ; 
but  will  now  do  it  more  at  length.  Lord 
Byron  was  not  present  at  this  scene.  He  went 
thither  in  his  carriage,  and  I  was  with  him ; 
but  on  getting  out,  he  studiously  kept  aloof, 
and  was  not  in  sight  while  the  melancholy 
proceedings  took  place.  With  regard  to  my- 
self, "  my  feelings  and  nerves,"  however  they 
might  have  suffered,  would  have  carried  me 
through  any  thing  where  Mr.  Shelley  was  con- 
cerned, provided  it  was  necessary.  They  have 
never  failed  me  on  very  trying  occasions.  But 
my  assistance  was  not  required :  there  were  no 
feelings  on  the  part  of  another  to  stand  by  and 
soothe;  and  though  I  did  not  "lie  back"  in 
the  carriage,  (as  is  here  made  out  for  the  sake 
of  effect,)  I  confess  I  could  not  voluntarily  wit- 
ness the  thrustings  in  of  the  spade  and  pick-axe 
upon  the  unburied  body  of  my  friend,  and 
have  the  chance  of  hearing  them  strike  against 


168  LORD    BY HON. 

his  skull,  as  they  actually  did.  Let  me  hasten 
from  this  subject. 

According  to  Captain  Medwin,  Lord  Byron 
said  of  the  writer  of  these  pages,  that  till  his 
voyage  to  Italy  he  "  had  never  been  ten  miles 
from  St.  Paul's."  The  Captain  ought  to  have 
known  enough  of  his  Lordship's  random  way 
of  talking,  not  to  take  for  granted  every  thing 
that  he  chose  to  report  of  another.  I  had 
never  been  out  of  England  before;  except, 
when  a  child,  to  the  coast  of  France ;  but  I 
had  perhaps  seen  as  much  of  my  native  coun- 
try as  most  persons  educated  in  town.  I  had 
been  in  various  parts  of  it,  from  Devonshire  to 
Yorkshire.  I  merely  mention  these  things  to 
show  what  idle  assertions  Lord  Byron  would 
repeat,  and  how  gravely  the  Captain  would 
echo  them.  If  every  body  mentioned  in  his 
work,  were  thus  to  deduct  from  it  what  he 
knows  to  be  untrue,  how  much  would  remain 
uncontradicted  ? 

"  I  never  met  with  any  man  who  shines  so 
much  in  conversation."  That  is  to  say,  Cap- 
tain Medwin  never  met  before  with  a  lord  so 
much  the  rage.  He  says  a  little  afterwards, 


LORD    BYRON.  169 

that  his  Lordship  "  never  showed  the  author," 
and  that  he  "  prided  himself  most  on  being  a 
man  of  the  world  and  of  fashion  ;" — that  is,  to 
Captain  Medwin ;  whose  admiration,  he  saw, 
ran  to  that  side  of  things.  The  truth  is,  as  I 
have  before  stated,  that  he  had  no  conversation 
in  the  higher  sense  of  the  word,  owing  to  these 
perpetual  affectations ;  but  instead  of  never 
showing  the  author  on  that  account,  he  never 
forgot  it.  His  sole  object  was  to  have  an  ad- 
miring report  of  himself,  as  a  genius,  who 
could  be  lord,  author,  or  what  he  pleased. 
"  His  anecdotes,"  says  Medwin, ."  of  life  and 
living  characters  were  inexhaustible."  This 
was  true,  if  you  chose  to  listen  to  them,  and 
to  take  every  thing  he  said  for  granted ;  but 
every  body  was  not  prepared,  like  the  Captain, 
to  be  thankful  for  stories  of  the  noble  Lord 
and  all  his  acquaintances,  male  and  female. 

"  Miserly  in  trifles — about  to  lavish  his  whole 
fortune  on  the  Greeks"  (oh  happy  listener!)  — 
"  to-day  diminishing  his  stud — to-morrow  tak- 
ing a  large  family  under  his  roof"  (an  ingeni- 
ous nicety  !),  or  giving  1000/.  for  a  yacht"  (a 
sum  which  it  very  much  surprised  and  vexed 


170  LOUD    BYRON. 

him  to  be  charged) ;  "  dining  for  a  few  Pauls 
when  alone — spending  hundreds  when  he  has 
friends ;  *  Nil  fuit  unquamj  says  the  gallant 
and  classical  officer,  '  sic  impar  sibi.' " 

But  enough  of  Captain  Medwin,  his  Latin, 
and  his  Greek,  for  he  also  quotes  Greek,  or,  as 
he  pleasantly  says,  "  adapts  "  it ;  that  is — But  I 
shall  be  making  a  sorry  criticism  of  a  sorry  mat- 
ter. I  had  the  pleasure  of  a  visit  from  Captain 
Medwin  while  "  under  the  roof"  that  he  speaks 
of,  and  should  have  said  nothing  calculated  to 
disturb  the  innocence  of  his  politesse,  had  he 
abstained  from  repeating  scandals  respecting 
women,  and  not  taken  upon  himself  to  criti- 
cise the  views  and  "  philosophy"  of  Mr.  Shel- 
ley ;  a  man  of  whom  he  was  qualified  to  know 
still  less  than  of  Lord  Byron.  With  the  cau- 
tions here  afforded  to  the  reader,  a  better  idea 
of  his  Lordship  may  certainly  be  drawn  from 
his  account  than  from  any  other.  The  warmth 
of  his  homage  drew  out  the  noble  Bard  on 
some  points  upon  which  he  would  have  been 
cautious  of  committing  himself  with  a  less 
wholesale  admirer ;  and  not  the  least  curious 


LORD    BYRON.  171 

part  of  the  picture,  is  this   mutual  excess  of 
their  position. 

An  article  was  written  in  "  The  Westmin- 
ster Review"  (Medwin  says,  by  Mr.  Hobhouse) 
to  show  that  the  Conversations  were  altogether 
unworthy  of  credit.     There  are  doubtless  many 
inaccuracies  in   the  latter;    but  the   spirit  re- 
mains undoubted ;  and  the  author  of  the  cri- 
ticism was  only  vexed  that  such  was  the  fact. 
He  assumes,  that  Lord  Byron  could  not  have 
made  this  or  that  statement  to  Captain  Med- 
win, because  the  statement  was  erroneous  or 
untrue;  but  an  anonymous  author  has  no  right 
to  be  believed  in  preference  to  one  who  speaks 
in  his  own  name :    there  is  nothing  to  show 
that  Mr.  Hobhouse  might  not  have  been  as 
mistaken  about  a  date  or  an  epigram  as  Mr. 
Medwin ;  and  when  we  find  him  giving  us  his 
own  version  of  a  fact,  and  Mr.  Medwin  assert- 
ing that  Lord  Byron  gave  him  another,  the 
only  impression  left  upon   the  mind  of  any 
body  who  knew  his  Lordship  is,  that  the  fault 
most  probably  lay  in  the  loose  corners  of  the 
noble  Poet's  vivacity.     Such  is  the  impression 


172  LORD    BYRON. 

made  upon  the  author  of  an  unpublished  Let- 
ter to  Mr.  Hobhouse,  which  has  been  shown 
me  in  print ;  and  he  had  a  right  to  it.  The 
reviewer,  to  my  knowledge,  is  mistaken  upon 
some  points,  as  well  as  the  person  he  reviews. 
The  assumption,  that  nobody  can  know  any 
thing  about  Lord  Byron  but  two  or  three  per- 
sons who  were  conversant  with  him  for  a  cer- 
tain space  of  time,  and  whom  he  spoke  of  with 
as  little  ceremony,  and  would  hardly  treat  with 
more  confidence  than  he  did  hundred  others, 
is  ludicrous ;  and  can  only  end,  as  the  criti- 
cism has  done,  in  doing  no  good  either  to  him 
or  them. 

The  Life  and  Times  is  a  curiosity,  if  it  were 
only  for  the  title.  But,  in  contradicting  its 
heap  of  absurdities,  some  more  truths  will 
come  out  for  the  reader's  entertainment.  The 
title-page  is  worth  repeating,  as  a  full-blown 
specimen  of  this  sort  of  flourishing. 

«  The  LIFE,  WRITINGS,  OPINIONS, 
and  TIMES  of  the  RIGHT  HON.  GEORGE 
GORDON  NOEL  BYRON,  LORD  BY- 
RON ;  including,  in  its  most  extensive  bio- 
graphy, anecdotes  and  memoirs  of  the  lives 


LORD    BYRON.  173 

of  the  most  eminent  and  eccentric,  public  and 
noble  characters  and  courtiers  of  the  present 
polished  and  enlightened  Age  and  Court  of 
His  Majesty  King  George  the  Fourth.  In 
the  course  of  the  biography  are  also  separately 
given  copious  recollections  of  the  lately  de- 
stroyed MS.,  originally  intended  for  posthu- 
mous publication,  and  entitled,  Memoirs  of 
My  Own  Life  and  Times.  By  the  Right 
Hon.  Lord  Byron. 

"  CREDE   BYRON."     Motto  of  the  Byron 
Family. 

"  I  have,  in  this  rough  work,  shaped  out  a  man 
Whom  this  beneath  world  doth  embrace  and  hug 
With  amplest  entertainment :  my  free  drift 
Halts  not  particularly,  but  moves  itself 
In  a  wide  sea  of  wax ;  no  levelled  malice 
Infects  one  comma  in  the  course  I  hold, 
But  flies  an  eagle  flight,  bold  and  forth-on 
Leaving  no  track  behind." 

SHAKSPEARE,  Timon  of  Athens. 

By  an  English  Gentleman  In  the  Greek  Mili- 
tary Service,  and  Comrade  of  his  Lordship. 
Compiled  from  documents,  and  from  long  per- 
sonal acquaintance.  In  Three  Volumes.  Vol.  I. 


174  LORD    BYRON. 

London :  Matthew  Iley,  Somerset-street,  Port- 
man-square.     MDCCCXXV. 

There  may  be,  it  seems,  enthusiasm  in  every 
thing,  even  in  book-making.  Here  is  a  vo- 
lume of  sound  in  the  very  types.  They  are 
proportioned  to  the  impression  intended  to  be 
made  on  the  sensorium.  We  have  the  LIFE, 
WRITINGS,  OPINIONS,  and  TIMES  of 
LORD  BYRON  very  large:  then,  after  a 
proper  crowd  of  polite  capitals,  comes  the 

"  AGE     AND     COURT     OF     HIS     MAJESTY     KING 

GEORGE    THE    FOURTH,"    with    its    greatness 
reasonably   diminished ;    then    "  Copious    Re- 
collections of  the  lately  destroyed  MS.,  origi- 
nally   intended    for   posthumous  publication," 
very   nice   and  particular;  then  a   flourish  of 
trumpets  again  in  the  size  of  the  "RIGHT 
HON.  LORD  BYRON,"  a  title  to  admira- 
tion   which    cannot    be    too   often    repeated ; 
after    which,    we    have   the    Family    Motto, 
asking  and  receiving  trust ;  then   the  motto 
from    Shakspeare,   really   good;   and  the  pro- 
cession is    closed   by   the   Author   in   person, 
who  in   modest  capitals  announces  himself  as 
an  English  Gentleman,  a  comrade  of  his  Lord- 


LORD    BYRON.  175 

ship,  who  has  judiciously  entered  into  the 
Greek  military  service,  and,  of  course,  does 
not  like  to  be  known.  It  would  have  hurt 
the  feelings  of  the  Sultan ;  whom  he  is  doubt- 
less intimate  with,  his  Lordship  once  having 
spoken  with  that  personage.  The  writer  con- 
cludes with  informing  us,  if  we  choose  to  over- 
hear him  (for  his  types  on  this  occasion  amount 
to  a  whisper),  that  all  this  world  of  information 
is  "compiled  from  authentic  documents,  and 
from  long  personal  acquaintance;"  and  our 
gratitude  is  consummated  by  the  information, 
that  we  have  three  volumes  of  it ;  a  whole  pa- 
radise of  knowledge. 

In  a  preface  full  of  mistakes,  and  containing 
a  remarkable  mixture  of  credulity  and  puffing, 
the  author  discusses  the  right  of  Lord  Byron's 
connexions  to  suppress  his  Memoirs ;  which 
right  he  denies.  He  says  that  his  Lordship 
was  public  property ;  that  the  work  was  be- 
queathed by  him  to  posterity  ;  and  that  no 
consideration  for  individuals  ought  to  have 
withheld  it.  Nobody  will  agree  with  this, 
except  persons  eager  at  all  hazards  to  gratify 
their  curiosity,  and  there  is  one  hazard  which 


176  LORD    BY11OX. 

would  stop  even  them: — viz.  the  mention  of 
themselves.  The  present  times  have  remark- 
ably exemplified  the  old  remark,  that  there  are 
none  so  furious  at  being  spoken  ill  of,  as  those 
who  delight  to  hear  scandal  of  others.  The 
question  respecting  the  publication  of  Lord 
Byron's  auto-biography  is,  not  whether  pos- 
terity, that  is,  our  children's  children,  might 
not  have  a  right  to  it,  if  it  could  be  recovered, 
which  it  probably  will ;  but  whether  the  cu- 
riosity of  his  contemporaries  had  a  right  to  be 
gratified  at  the  hazard  of  wounding  the  feel- 
ings and  risking  the  peace  and  reputation  of 
the  living ;  all  this,  too,  on  the  ipse  dixit  of 
a  man  of  violent  impulses,  who  had  a  false 
opinion  of  human  nature,  and  little  cared  what 
feelings  he  wounded,  where  his  own  mortifica- 
tion, or  wit,  or  love  of  display,  was  concerned. 
In  the  course  of  time,  when  the  author  becomes 
better  known,  and  a  calmer  estimate  can  be 
formed  both  of  his  merits  and  mistakes,  readers 
may  take  up  such  a  book  with  no  hurt  at  all  to 
the  feelings  of  living  persons,  and  perhaps  no 
injustice  to  those  who  are  dead.  Their  know- 
ledge of  the  writer  would  qualify  what  he  said 


LOUD    BYRON.  177 

of  them ;  and  on  intimate  acquaintance  with 
himself,  beyond  what  he  intended  (for  such  is 
the  inevitable  betrayal  of  all  auto-biographies), 
might  repay  the  world  for  any  injustice  hazard- 
ed on  that  score.     They  would  have  the  bene- 
fit accruing  from  the  anatomy  of  an  extraordi- 
nary individual.     For  I  hold  it  to  be  certain, 
that   an   exposition   of  the   real   feelings   and 
opinions  of  any  body  superior  to  the  ordinary 
run  of  mankind,  would  serve  to  strike  out  new 
lights  for  the  conduct  and  improvement  of  the 
human   race,   even,   perhaps,  from  what  were 
considered  his  errors.     The  errors  of  one  gene- 
ration may  turn  out  to  be  the  virtues  of  ano- 
ther ;  just  as  the  virtue  of  one  (religious  intole- 
rance for  example)  may  turn  out  to  be  an  error. 
I  should  like  to  know  every  particle   of  the 
lives  of  Plato  and  Socrates,  of  Brutus  and  of 
Caesar   and   Marcus   Aurelius,   of  Dante   and 
Ariosto,  of  such  men  as  Mazarin  and  De  Retz, 
of  Henry  the  Fourth,  of  Chaucer,  Shakspeare, 
and  Milton,  of  Pope  and  Swift ;  and  the  more 
particularly,   the   more   they  differed  in   their 
conduct  from  the  times  they  lived  in.     It  is 
said,  that  great  men   resemble   little   men   in 

VOL.  I.  N 


178  LORD    BYRON. 

their  passions ;  but  perhaps  they  are  not  so 
much  mistaken  as  little  men  in  the  nature  of 
them,  and  in  the  greater  or  less  quantity  of 
judgment  with  which  they  are  treated  by  so- 
ciety ;  and,  at  all  events,  we  are  more  likely 
to  be  told  something  by  the  passions  that  ac- 
company the  study  of  a  man's  self,  than  by 
those  of  ignorance  and  imitation. 

"  The  subject  of  these  Memoirs,"  says  our 
author  of  the  "  Life  and  Times,"  "  was  de- 
scended from  a  family  which  was  renowned 
from  the  period  of  the  Conquest ;  several  il- 
lustrious persons  having  figured  in  the  history 
of  England  under  the  name  of  Buron,  Biron, 
or  Byron,  which  they  assumed  indiscrimi- 
nately." 

This  reminds  me  of  the  disputes  respecting 
Lord  Byron's  pronunciation  of  his  name ;  some 
maintaining  that  he  called  it  Byron,  with  a 
short  y,  others  Byron  with  a  long  one.  The 
truth  is,  he  pronounced  it  both  ways,  but  in 
general  the  former.  Captain  Medwin  says,  that 
in  speaking  of  Lady  Byron,  he  pronounced  it 
"  Byrn ;"  but  this  is  a  mistake.  The  Captain's 
ear  might  not  have  discerned  the  second  vowel, 


LORD    BYRON.  179 

but  it  was  discernible  to  others.  "  Byrn,"  is 
Byron,  pronounced  shortly,  with  the  northern 
burr.  But  he  called  himself  Byron  sometimes ; 
and  the  Italians  always  called  him  so;  at  least 
as  nearly  as  they  could.  They  made  it  JBairon, 
as  I  have  noticed  in  Madame  Guiccioli.  Lord 
Byron  was  proud  of  his  name,  and  he  had 
reason  to  be  so.  He  was  also  not  unwilling 
to  be  reminded  of  his  namesake  in  Shakspeare, 
and  used  to  mention  with  pleasure  the  quota- 
tion attributed  to  Mr.  Bowles  : 

"  Biron  they  call  him  ;  but  a  merrier  man, 
Within  the  limits  of  becoming  mirth, 
I  never  knew. 

His  eye  begets  occasion  for  his  wit, 
While  his  apt  tongue,  conceit's  expositor,"  &c. 

I  quote  from  memory,  and  cannot  go  on ; 
but  the  passage  was  not  applicable.  Lord 
Byron  was  sometimes  witty  in  conversation, 
often  merry,  oftener  commonplace.  Conver- 
sation, as  I  have  said  more  than  once,  was 
by  no  means  his  talent ;  and  none  would 
have  thought  it  so,  who  had  been  used  to 
better. 

N  2 


180  LORD   BYRON. 

Our  author  gives  us  to  understand,  that 
Lord  Byron  did  not  succeed  so  well  in  making 
love,  as  ladies  succeeded  in  making  love  to 
him.  This  is  true,  for  reasons  which  have 
been  explained.  But  they  do  not  apply  to  his 
early  love  for  his  cousin  Miss  Chaworth,  which 
was  that  of  an  imaginative  boy  taking  a  boyish 
impulse  for  a  serious  passion,  and  fancying 
himself  bound  to  be  silent  and  sorrowing.  He 
would  have  been  in  love  with  any  other  girl 
that  happened  to  be  near  him,  and  have  lost 
her  by  the  same  mistake.  It  was  the  Author's 
first  error, — a  mistake  out  of  book.  But  he 
imagined  the  passion,  or  has  since  shown  that 
he  could  imagine  it,  beautifully,  (see  his  poem 
of  the  "  Dream") ;  and  if  the  lady  had  been 
kind,  she  might  probably  have  warmed  his 
heart  into  real  love,  and  saved  him  (as  he  sus- 
pected she  might)  many  a  cruel  mistake  after- 
wards. As  to  his  literature  being  in  the  way, 
our  author  is  sadly  out  in  his  ponderings  on 
that  matter : — 

"  It  is  a  weakness"  (he  tells  us)  "peculiar 
to  the  geniuses  of  imagination,  both  male  and 


LORD    BYRON.  181 

female,  to  fancy  that  they  must  be  themselves 
the  objects  of  that  passion  which  they  so  fer- 
vently describe,  whatever  may  be  their  per- 
sonal defects.  Literary  persons  are,  however, 
from  their  very  pursuits,  the  least  qualified 
to  shine  in  the  courts  of  love.  One  captain 
in  the  Guards  will  do  more  execution  in  an 
hour  with  his  small  shot  (small  talk)  than  all 
the  literati  of  the  Chapter  Coffee  House  can 
effect  with  their  critical  great  guns  in  twelve 
months.  Sappho  was  reduced  to  take  a  flying 
leap  to  get  rid  of  her  disappointed  passion. 
Pope  was  jeered  at  by  Lady  Mary  Wortley 
Montague,  and  fascinating  Jack  Musters  was 
too  much  for  poor  Lord  Byron.  De  gustibus 
nil  disputandum.  In  fact,  a  wise  man  in  love 
becomes  a  mere  fool ;  and  a  Cymon  becomes 
intelligent  in  the  presence  of  his  beloved 
Iphigene. " 

What  sort  of  lovers  the  Literati  of  the 
"  Chapter  Coffee  House"  may  be,  it  is  impossible 
to  say  ;  but  that  their  literature  (if  worth  any 
thing)  is  no  obstruction  to  their  love-making, 
may  be  seen  by  the  histories  of  the  literati 


182  LORD    BYRON. 

of  other  coffee-houses,  to  wit,  the  Steeles,  and 
Congreves,  and  Vanbrughs  of  old.  Vanbrugh 
was  a  Captain  of  the  Guards,  and  a  favourite 
of  the  ladies ;  but  do  we  suppose  that  he  was 
less  a  favourite  than  any  other  Captain,  be- 
cause he  could  talk  better,  and  because  his 
small  shot  was  good  as  well  as  small  ?  Sappho 
was  a  great  poetess ;  but  she  might  have  set 
her  heart  upon  a  person  incapable  of  under- 
standing her,  or  have  exhibited  a  violence 
and  self-will  which  belonged  to  her  tempe- 
rament and  not  to  her  wit.  One  example, 
or  ten,  says  nothing  against  the  universal 
opinion  in  favour  of  the  union  of  wit  and 
gallantry,  and  of  the  effect  that  even  the  re- 
putation of  wit  has  upon  the  fair  sex.  Pope 
was  deformed,  and  his  letters  to  Lady  Mary 
partook  of  the  crookedness  of  which  he  was 
conscious.  He  had  not  the  heart  to  give  his 
talents  fair  play,  and  write  in  a  straightfor- 
ward manner;  and  she,  being  surrounded  by 
handsome  wits,  and  gay  fellows  about  Court, 
with  all  their  faculties  fresh  upon  them,  was 
not  likely  to  select  for  her  gallant  the  least 
handsome  of  them  all,  a  little  misgiving  in- 


LORD    BYRON.  183 

valid.  Lord  Byron  did  not  fail,  because  he 
was  wise  or  witty,  or  because  a  wise  man  is 
a  fool  in  love,  still  less  because  every  fool 
has  the  luck  of  Cymon ;  but  because  he  was 
splenetic  and  moody,  and  very  different  from 
what  a  man  of  his  wit  ought  to  have  been. 
Does  our  speculative  friend  think  that  the 
Rochesters  and  Buckinghams  always  failed 
in  their  gallantry  ? 

In  the  note  to  p.  98,  vol.  I.  a  suspicion  is  ex- 
pressed, that  Lord  Byron  and  Mr.  Hobhouse 
planned  and  executed  the  insurrection  of  the 
Greeks  nearly  twenty  years  back !  The  subtle 
nod  in  Italics  by  which  this  discovery  is  con- 
veyed to  us,  is  really  agreeable,  and  gives  one 
a  favourable  opinion  of  the  author's  good-na- 
tured credulity. 

"  Circumstances,"  says  Lord  Byron,  "  of 
little  consequence  to  mention?  led  Mr.  Hob- 
house  and  myself  into  that  country,  before  we 

*  These  "  circumstances  of  little  consequence,"  in  which 
the  author  has  found  something  of  the  "  utmost  conse- 
quence," were  probably  nothing  more  than  a  fit  of  caprice, 
or  the  pursuit  of  a  pretty  face,  or  the  chances  attendant 
upon  navigation.  He  seems  to  think  that  his  hero  could  not 
put  on  his  hat,  but  the  universe  had  something  to  do  with  it. 


184  LORD    BYRON. 

visited  any  other  part  of  the  Ottoman  do- 
minions :  and,  with  the  exception  of  Major 
Leake,  then  officially  resident  at  Joannina, 
no  other  Englishmen  have  ever  advanced  be- 
yond the  capital  into  the  interior,  as  that 
gentleman  very  lately  assured  me.  Ali  Pacha 
was  at  that  time  (1809)  carrying  on  war  against 
Ibrahim  Pacha,  whom  he  had  driven  to  Berat, 
a  strong  fortress,  which  he  was  then  besieging. 
On  our  arrival  at  Joannina,  we  were  invited  to 
Tepelene,  his  Highness's  birth-place,  and  fa- 
vourite Serai,  only  one  day's  journey  from 
Berat;  at  this  juncture  the  Vizier  made  it  his 
head-quarters."  The  author  adds,  in  a  note, 
"  It  seems  extremely  probable,  that  this  ex- 
pression was  made  use  of  to  conceal  the  real 
purport  of  the  journey,  as  Ali  Pacha's  subse- 
quent rupture  with  the  Porte  was  the  signal 
for  the  breaking  out  of  the  Greek  insurrection ; 
if  so,  the  journey  was  of  the  utmost  consequence 
to  the  cause  of  Greece." 

"  A  most  material  question,"  says  he,  "  now 
arises : — What  could  induce  two  young  men 
of  independent  fortune  to  take  such  a  journey 


LORD    BYRON.  185 

by  sea  and  land,  and  to  brave  the  wilds  and 
banditti  of  Albania,  as  rude  a  country  as  the 
interior  of  Africa,  to  pay  a  visit  to  an  infidel, 
a  barbarian,  a  monster,  execrable  for  every 
species  of  villany,  and  reeking  with  blood  ?" 

Why,  because  he  was  a  monster  and  a  show, 
and  because  others  had  travelled  in  Greece 
before,  especially  men  from  the  Universities. 
Has  not  our  friend  learnt,  from  his  intimacy 
with  courts  and  people  of  fashion,  that  nothing 
is  such  a  godsend  to  gentlemen  full  of  ennui 
and  fond  of  notoriety,  as  a  spectacle  of  any 
sort,  the  more  monstrous  the  better  ?  And 
does  he  not  know,  that  if  Ali  had  come  to 
the  British  metropolis,  he  would  have  been  the 
rage  for  the  season,  and  asked  out  by  every 
great  person  that  could  venture  on  such  a  li- 
berty, to  see  how  such  a  very  decapitating 
person  drank  his  coffee  and  displayed  his  dia- 
monds ?  Not  to  know  this,  argues  him,  I  fear, 
still  more  unknown  than  he  wishes  to  be.  Jo- 
annina,  the  Pacha's  capital,  was  accounted  the 
metropolis  of  Modern  Greece :  and  besides, 
Lord  Byron,  though  young,  had  had  expe- 


186  LORD    BYRON. 

rience  enough  to  begin  to  philosophize ;  and 
he  probably  thought,  that  many  a  meek  per- 
sonage whom  he  had  known  in  England  would 
have  been  as  savage  as  Ali,  had  he  been  born 
and  bred  in  the  same  manner ;  for  Ali  was  a 
very  soft-spoken  gentleman,  as  quiet  as  Claver- 
house ;  and,  for  aught  we  know,  would  have 
made  a  capital  writer  in  a  Scotch  magazine. 

"  Thus,"  quoth  our  friend,  after  quoting  a 
couple  of  stanzas  from  Childe  Harold, — "  thus 
did  this  apostle  of  liberty  preach  to  the  Greeks 
through  eighteen  stanzas,  and  it  should  seem 
that  neither  his  planning  nor  his  preaching 
was  in  vain."  Poor  Lord  Byron !  He  would 
have  been  a  very  unwilling  apostle,  had  he 
known  he  was  also  to  be  a  martyr.  He  had 
as  little  real  regard  for  liberty,  as  Alfieri,  or 
any  other  proud  man  of  rank ;  but  he  had  an 
impatience  of  any  despotism  not  his  own ;  he 
had  also  a  great  love  of  fame ;  and  even  in 
that  is  to  be  found  a  link  with  the  social  af- 
fections, very  capable  of  being  turned  to  good 
account,  if  circumstances  are  favourable. 

Speaking  of  an  alleged  residence  in  the 
island  of  Mytilene,  which  Lord  Byron  denied 


LORD    BYRON.  187 

in  a  public  letter,  the  author  says,  "  The  ac- 
count is  circumstantial ;  the  denial  in  the  let- 
ter is  positive.  If  the  latter  were  really  written 
by  Lord  Byron,  he  abominated  falsehood,  and 
implicit  confidence  should  be  placed  in  his 
assertion."  Of  the  residence  in  the  island  of 
Mytilene  I  know  nothing ;  but  as  to  the  abo- 
mination of  falsehood,  Lord  Byron  once  gave 
a  list  of  the  Englishmen  he  had  seen  since  he 
left  England,  and  told  the  public  that  the  list 
was  complete.  Mr.  Shelley's  name  was  not  in 
it,  and  he  had  seen  Mr.  Shelley.  He  had  been 
in  habits  of  intercourse  with  him. 

The  mention  of  Mr.  Nathan,  the  composer, 
at  p.  212,  reminds  me,  that  I  was  present  one 
day  in  Piccadilly,  when  that  gentleman  came 
to  give  Lord  Byron  a  specimen  of  his  "  He- 
brew Melodies."  The  noble  Bard,  who  was 
then  in  the  middle  of  that  unpleasant  business 
about  his  wife,  asked  him  for  the  one  respect- 
ing Herod  and  Mariamne,  which  he  listened 
to  with  an  air  of  romantic  regret.  This  was  a 
sort  of  effect  that  he  liked  ;  nor  would  it  have 
turned  to  ill  account,  if  his  rank  and  worldly 
connexions  could  have  let  him  alone.  In  the 

-. 


188  LORD   BYRON. 

very  pretence  there  was  a  love  of  something, 
that  might  have  become  real.  Mr.  Nathan 
had  a  fine  head;  and  made  the  grand  piano- 
forte shake  like  a  nut-shell,  under  the  vehe- 
mence of  his  inspiration. 

I  remember  Polidori  also,  who  is  mentioned 
at  p.   220.     He   was   the   son   of  Polidori,  a 
teacher  of  Italian,  who  made  some  good  trans- 
lations from  Milton.      Lord  Byron   engaged 
the  young  Doctor  to  accompany  him  to  Greece. 
He  came  in  one  day,  and  called  about  him  in 
a  strange  manner  for  water  and  a  towel.      Not 
knowing  who  he  was,  I  was  puzzled  to  think 
who  it  could  be,  that  made  himself  thus  cava- 
lierly at  home.     Lord  Byron  looked  discon- 
certed, but  was  quite  mild  and  acquiescent.     I 
have  seen  him  submit  in  a  similar  way  to  others 
who   did  not  scruple  to   avail    themselves  of 
this  weakness.     I  have  known  him  even  has- 
tily  secrete  a  paper,  which   he  had   promised 
them  perhaps  not  to  show.     Polidori  and  he 
used  afterwards  to  have   loud   disputes,  as  if 
they  were  equals.     He  was  a  foolish  boasting 
fellow,   not   perhaps   without    disease   in    his 
blood ;  and  came  to  an  impatient  end. 


LORD    BYRON.  189 

Among  the  hostile  criticisms  upon  Lord 
Byron,  our  author  quotes  one  from  "  Black- 
wood's  Magazine."  The  reader  remembers  the 
passage  in  Goldsmith's  "  Citizen  of  the  World," 
where  a  soldier,  a  prisoner  for  debt,  and  a 
porter,  are  deprecating  the  consequences  of  a 
French  invasion.  The  porter  says,  the  French 
are  a  parcel  of  slaves,  fit  only  to  carry  burdens ; 
the  prisoner,  that  they  have  rio  liberty ;  and 
the  soldier  wonders  what  will  become  of  "  our 
religion."  — "  May  the  devil  sink  me  into 
flames,"  (such,  quoth  the  Citizen  of  the  World, 
was  the  solemnity  of  his  adjuration) —  "  may 
the  devil  sink  me  into  flames,  if  I  can  think, 
my  lads,  what  is  to  become  of  our  religion." 
Mr.  Black  wood  was  agitated  in  like  manner 
respecting  the  shocking  want  of  piety  and 
Christian  charity  discernible  in  his  Lordship. 

"  It  has  been  sufficiently  manifest,"  says  he, 
"  that  this  man  is  devoid  of  religion."  (Sir 
Walter,  by  the  bye,  of  "  Beacon"  fame,  must 
be  acquitted  of  having  known  any  thing  of 
this  passage,  where  a  lord  is  designated  so 
ignobly.)  "  At  times,  indeed,"  pursues  Mr. 
Blackwood,  "  the  power  and  presence  of  the 


190  LORD    BYRON. 

Deity,  as  speaking  in  the  sterner  wakings  of 
the  elements,  seems  to  force  some  momentary 
consciousness  of  their  existence  into  his  labour- 
ing breast ;  a  spirit  into  which  there  breathes 
so  much  of  the  divine,  cannot  always  resist  the 
majesty  of  its  Maker :  but  of  true  religion, 
terror  is  a  small  part ;  and  of  all  religion,  that 
founded  on  mere  terror  is  the  least  worthy  of 
such  a  man  as  Byron.  We  may  look  in  vain, 
through  all  his  works,  for  the  slightest  evi- 
dence that  his  soul  had  ever  listened  to  the 
gentle  voice  of  his  oracles.  His  understanding 
has  been  subdued  into  conviction  by  some 
passing  cloud ;  but  his  heart  has  never  been 
touched.  He  has  never  written  one  line  that 
savours  of  the  spirit  of  meekness" 

Then  follows  something  about  charity,  and 
clay  idols,  and  brutal  outrages  of  all  the  best 
feelings ;  and  Mr.  Blackwood,  having  finished 
his  sermon,  retires  to  count  his  money,  his 
ribaldry,  and  his  kicks. 

Our  book-making  and  best-of-e very-thing- 
making  author  puts  as  much  faith  in  the  cele- 
brated Farewell  to  Lady  Byron,  as  if  he  had 
been  one  of  the  numerous  married  ladies  who 


LORD    BYRQN.  191 

wondered  how  any  body  could  be  cruel  to  the 
writer  of  such  charming  verses.  There  never 
was  a  greater  instance  of  Lord  Byron's  author- 
ship and  love  of  publicity  than  that  very  poem. 
He  sat  down  to  imagine  what  a  husband  might 
say,  who  had  really  loved  his  wife,  to  a  wife 
who  had  really  loved  him ;  and  he  said  it 
so  well,  that  one  regrets  he  had  not  been  en- 
couraged, when  younger,  to  feel  the  genuine 
passion.  But  the  verses  were  nothing  more. 
There  was  no  true  love  on  either  side,  or 
(without  meaning  to  liken  the  two  modes  of 
conduct)  neither  could  have  behaved  to  the 
other  as  both  did  afterwards.  People  may  say 
bitter  things,  who  love ;  the  things  may  even 
be  the  bitterer  at  the  moment,  because  they 
cannot  endure  the  very  dispute  that  occasions 
them.  Unkind  things  may  be  said,  precisely 
because  we  do  not  mean  them,  and  because  we 
like  to  flatter  ourselves  with  observing  their  ef- 
fect upon  the  beloved  object.  But  real  lovers  do 
not  precede  their  union  with  a  doubting  court- 
ship ;  still  less  do  they  follow  it  with  premature 
differences,  with  a  hasty  separation,  with  public 
libels  on  one  side,  and  unbroken  inattention  on 


192  LORD    BYRON. 

the  other.  It  is  best,  surely,  that  there  should 
have  been  no  love  in  the  case;  and  being  no 
love,  it  was  best  that  the  union  should  be  put 
an  end  to.  As  to  what  a  man  says  on  his  death- 
bed, we  are  first  to  be  certain  that  he  did  say  it ; 
and  next,  we  are  to  think  what  induces  him 
to  say  it,  and  whether  it  is  as  likely  to  be  his 
strength  as  his  weakness.  Besides,  at  that  af- 
fecting moment,  a  man  may  feel  a  tenderness 
towards  all  whom  he  is  going  to  leave,  espe- 
cially those  with  whom  he  has  been  conversant. 
The  writer  of  the  "  Life  and  Times"  says,  that 
Lord  Byron  in  his  last  moments  was  fre- 
quently bursting  forth  into  most  affectionate 
exclamations  of  "  My  dear  wife !  my  dear 
child !"  Fletcher,  in  his  narrative,  says  no- 
thing of  the  epithet  bestowed  on  the  former  ; 
and  this  good-humoured  domestic  was  as  be- 
lievable, I  dare  say,  as  any  man,  when  he  was 
not  taking  himself  for  a  Leporello.  I  would 
not  be  thought  to  speak  lightly  of  such  an 
occasion,  or  to  speak  of  it  without  necessity — 
quite  the  reverse.  The  fact  is,  that  all  ques- 
tions connected  with  love  and  marriage  are 
of  far  deeper  concernment,  and  will  one  day 


LORD    BYRON.  193 

be  thought  so,  than  to  suffer  any  person  who 
has  been  deeply  struck  with  them,  to  pass  over 
their  consideration  at  any  time,  out  of  fear  of 
being  mistaken  by  the  vulgar. 

A  great  many  stories  are  related  of  Lord 
Byron  in  the  "  Life  and  Times,"  for  whicli 
there  is  no  authority;  and  unluckily,  when  a 
reader  meets  with  such  as  he  knows  to  be  un- 
true, all  the  rest  go  for  nothing.  In  the  fol- 
lowing account,  for  instance,  of  Madame  Guic- 
cioli  and  her  family,  there  is  scarcely  a  word  of 
truth. 

"  The  Countess   of  G has   occasioned 

some  noise,  both  in  Italy  and  England;  all 
the  romantic  tales  of  his  Lordship  taking  her 
out  of  a  convent  are  fictions  ;  she  is  no  subject 
for  a  nunnery.  Her  father  is  at  the  head  of 
an  ancient  Roman  family,  much  reduced  in  its 
fortunes :  he  let  out  his  palace  for  their  sup- 
port, and  Lord  Byron  by  chance  occupied  it 
when  his  daughter  was  given  in  marriage  to 

Count  G ,   an   officer  poor  in  every  thing 

but  titles.  Lord  B made  the  bride  a  li- 
beral present  of  jewels,  and  in  a  short  time  he 
became  the  locum  tenens  of  the  bridegroom. 

VOL.  I.  o 


LORD    BYRON. 

An  amicable  arrangement  was  made ;  the 
Count  set  off  to  join  the  army  at  Naples, 
newly  caparisoned,  and  the  Countess  remained 
under  the  roof  of  the  noble  Lord,  where  her 
father  acts  as  regulator  of  the  household.  She 
is  a  lovely  woman,  not  more  than  twenty -two 
years  of  age;  of  a  gay,  volatile  disposition; 
rides  like  an  Amazon,  and  fishes,  hunts,  and 
shoots  with  his  Lordship.  Nature  appears  to 
have  formed  them  for  each  other.  She  is  be- 
loved by  all  the  domestics,  and  is  friendly  to 
every  one  that  wants  her  aid.  She  speaks 
English  with  propriety,  and  possesses  many 
accomplishments." 

The  author  here  quoted  by  our  friend  of  the 
"  Life  and  Times,"  proceeds  to  give  a  mar- 
vellous account  of  a  sail  from  Venice  to  Ithaca, 
and  of  the  Countess's  pursuit  of  her  noble 
lover  in  a  small  boat,  in  which,  with  no  other 
company  than  a  boy,  she  was  tossed  about  for 
three  days  and  two  nights  ! 

Such  are  the  fictions  received  into  a  work 
professing  to  be  a  "  full,  true,  and  particular 
account."  It  is  added  in  a  note,  that  "  Count 
G was  actually  with  Lord  Byron  when  he 


LORD    BYRON.  195 

died,  and  was  one  of  the  committee  of  four 
persons  appointed  by  Maurocordato  to  take  care 
of  his  property."  Here  Count  Pietro  Gamba, 
the  brother  of  the  lady,  is  confounded  with 
the  Cavaliere  Guiccioli  her  husband.  Count 
Gamba,  the  father,  was  not  of  a  Roman,  but  a 
Ravenna  family.  For  the  liberal  present,  or 
any  other  present,  of  jewels,  made  by  Lord 
Byron  to  the  bride, — credat  Christianus, — for 
nothing  but  Christian  charity  can  do  it ;  and 
as  to  the  lady's  accomplishments,  male  as  well 
as  female, — hunting,  and  shooting,  and  speak- 
ing English, — the  writer  might  as  well  have 
said,  that  the  boarding-school  young  ladies  in 
England  all  go  out  hunting  every  morning, 
and  speak  Latin  to  the  whippers-in. 

But  intelligent  men,  in  the  very  act  of  dis- 
crediting fictions  respecting  Lord  Byron,  have 
shown  a  tendency  to  blow  up  every  little  spark 
of  their  own  fancy  into  a  flame  and  a  lustre. 
M.  Beyle,  the  author  of  some  works  justly  es- 
teemed, a  very  sprightly  and  sometimes  nounpro- 
found  writer,  has  given  an  excellent  sketch  of 
Lord  Byron,  painted  from  the  life,  in  the  midst  of 
which  he  introduces  the  following  grotesques:— 

o  2 


196  LORD    BYRON. 

"  He  can  speak  the  ancient  Greek,  the  mo- 
dern Greek,  and  the  Arabian."     Of  "  the  Ara- 
bian" he  did  not  know  a  syllable.     At  least  if 
he  did,  I  think  I  should  have  heard  of  it  during 
my  intercourse  with  him.     Besides,  where  was 
he  to  pick  it  up  ?     Probably  he  knew  a  few 
words  of  the  Maltese  jargon.     Modern  Greek  he 
knew  more  of,  and  might  have  spoken  a  little, 
when  he  was  in  Greece,  —  about  as  much,  per- 
haps, as  ordinary  travellers  in  Italy  speak  Italian. 
With   the  ancient  language   he   was   so  little 
conversant,  that  I  doubt  whether  he  could  read 
"  Anacreon"  without  the  help  of  a  dictionary. 
He  had  lost  it,  after  he  left  Harrow,  as  I  think 
he  somewhere  confesses.      He  was   far  from 
familiar  even  with  any  of  the  Latin  writers. 
It  might  be  said  of  him  with  regard  to   the 
dead  languages,  as  it  was  of  Shakspeare  (and 
he  would  have  forgiven  the  truth  for  the  sake 
of  the  comparison),  that  he  had  "  little  Latin, 
and  less  Greek."     I  have  little  of  them  myself, 
having  suffered  them   to  slip  from  me  in  like 
manner ;  but  what  I  do  know,  I  think  I  know 
better  than  he  did  ;  and  this  is  saying  nothing 
either  to  his  advantage  or  mine.     I  mention 


LOUD   BYRON.  197 

this,  lest  the  reader,  from  what  1  have  said  of 
his  want  of  learning,  should  receive  an  undue 
impression  in  favour  of  my  own,  or  think  I 
intended  it.  Lord  Byron,  to  the  best  of  my 
recollection,  never  quoted  an  ancient  author  to 
me  but  once ;  which,  by-the-way,  reminds  me 
of  a  curious  evidence  of  the  childish  temper  in 
which  he  used  to  indulge  himself,  to  a  degree 
hardly  credible.  I  told  him  one  day,  that  his 
major-domo,  Lega,  had  been  quoting  Latin  to 
me.  He  said  with  all  the  look  of  a  little  boy 
who  has  missed  a  piece  of  flattery  or  plum-pud- 
ding, "  Did  he  ?  He  never  quoted  Latin  to 
me."  This  was  "  baby  Byron,"  as  his  sister 
called  him.  His  mistakes  in  quantity, — such 
as  his  calling  redivivus,  redivivus— were  less 
evidences  perhaps  of  his  want  of  scholarship, 
where  the  word  was  as  common  in  poetry. 
Our  villainous  way  of  reading  Latin  and  Greek 
verses,  with  a  contempt  of  short  and  long  that 
would  have  made  an  ancient  split  his  sides, 
excuses  mistakes  of  this  kind,  even  in  a  lover 
of  Horace,  not  very  learned.  In  short,  it 
would  be  difficult,  in  these  days  of  quotations 
and  indexes,  to  pronounce  whether  a  man  was 


198  LORD    BYRON. 

a  real  scholar  or  not,  unless  one  has  lived  with 
him.  Mr.  Hobhouse,  who  writes  himself 
A.  M.,  and  loaded  his  mercurial  friend  with 
whole  bales  of  comment,  once  contended  with 
me,  that  the  accent  upon  the  word  Rimini 
ought  to  be  upon  the  second  syllable,  instead 
of  the  first; — a  comfortable  piece  of  informa- 
tion to  give  a  man  who  had  just  been  using 
the  word  in  public  the  other  way  !  I  had  not 
however  been  so  foolish  as  to  subject  myself  to 
the  chance  of  these  good-natured  suggestions. 
I  had  made  surety  doubly  sure  by  consulting 
Lucan,  and  to  him  I  referred  my  critic,  who 
was  convinced  and  happy.* 

Our  author  writes  like  a  man  of  sense  on  the 
mistakes  committed  by  Mr.  Bowles  during  the 
Pope  controversy ;  but  with  all  due  deference 
to  the  genius  of  Mr.  Campbell,  who,  though 
something  better  than  a  critic,  has  written  a 
volume  of  criticism  full  of  beauties, -\ — and  of 
Lord  Byron,  who,  though  an  extraordinary 

*  "  Vicinumque  minax  invadit  Ariminum,  ut  ignes 

Solis  Lucifero  fugiebant  astra  relicto." — Pharsalia,  lib.  i. 

t  The  First  Volume  of  the  Specimens  of  British  Poets. 


LORD    BYRON.  199 

person,  was  no  critic  at  all, — the  only  paper 
that   went   to  the  heart   of  that   subject   was 
written    by   Mr.   Hazlitt,   in    "The   London 
Magazine."     All  the  others,  like  the  persons 
disputing  about  the  cameleon,  were   at   once 
right  and  wrong.      Lord  Byron   thought,   or 
pretended  to  think,  that  people  meant  to  say 
Pope  was  no  poet ;  and  in  justly  vindicating 
him  from  that  charge,  real  or  supposed,  he  lost 
sight  of  the  limits  between  one  kind  of  poetry 
and  another.     Mr.  Bowles,  on  the  other  hand, 
in  trying  to  make  out  that  the  two  kinds  had 
nothing  in  common,  confounded  materials  with 
the  use  of  them ;  and  forgot  the  very  soul  of 
poetry  he  was  contending  for,  in  subjecting  it 
to  every  image  it  took  up.     According  to  him, 
Nature  did  not  include  Art ;  and  a  great  poet 
could  not  handle  his  stick  or  his  gloves  with 
impunity.     But  see  all  this  question  admirably 
disentangled,  and  wound  up,  in  the  article  by 
Mr.  Hazlitt.     As   to  Pope's   moral   character, 
Mr.   Bowles   was    ridiculous,    and    something 
worse.     He  there  sadly  forgot  both  his  nature 
and  his  art :  and  only  ended  with  proving  him- 
self as  inferior  to  Pope  in  a  social  light,  not- 


200  LORD    BYRON. 

withstanding  his  ethics,  as  he  is  to  him  in 
the  amount  of  his  poetry,  notwithstanding  his 
poetics. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  contradict  the  number- 
less idle  tales  which  our  author  proceeds  to  re- 
late respecting  Lord  Byron's  adventures.  Some 
of  the  scenes  in  which  they  are  laid,  his  Lord- 
ship never  beheld  ;  and  such  of  the  adventures 
as  have  a  foundation  in  truth,  are  mixed  up 
with  the  most  ridiculous  fables.  Every  thing 
which  happens  to  have  come  under  my  own 
knowledge,  is  sure  to  be  thus  falsified.  I  do 
not  believe  that  the  compiler  wished  to  say 
any  thing  untrue ;  but  he  takes  care  to  doubt 
only  what  tells  against  his  hero,  and  swallows 
implicitly  every  thing  else.  On  both  accounts 
he  is  repeatedly  committing  himself.  His 
scepticism  is  as  warm  as  his  credulity,  and  gets 
him  into  as  great  mistakes.  For  instance,  from 
denying  that  the  following  verses  were  sent  to 
Lady  Byron  (which  I  believe  as  little  as  he 
does),  he  proceeds  to  abuse  what  he  would 
otherwise  have  admired,  and  discovers  that  the 
verses  themselves  were  not  written  by  Lord 


LORD    BYRON.  201 

Byron,  which  they  certainly  were.     His  Lord- 
ship repeated  them  to  me  himself. 

"  The  reader,"  says  "  The  Life  and  Times," 
"  will  recollect,  that  the  marriage  of  Lord  and 
Lady  Byron  took  place  on  the  2d  of  January, 
1815,  and,  if  we  may  believe  the  « Literary 
Gazette,'  his  Lordship,  on  the  2d  of  January, 
1821,  sent  Lady  Byron  the  following  epi- 
gram : — 

'  This  day  of  all  hath  surely  done 

Its  worst  to  me  and  you  ; 
'Tis  now  six  years  since  we  were  one, 
And  five  since  we  were  two.' 

"  The  reader,"  continues  our  biographer, 
"  may  choose  whether  he  will  believe  that 
Lord  Byron  could  be  guilty  of  so  cruel  and 
unmanly  an  insult,  or  that  some  drivelling 
scribbler  has  attempted  to  palm  his  own  Grub- 
street  wit  upon  the  proprietor  of  '  The  Literary 
Gazette,'  as  a  genuine  effusion  of  the  noble 
Bard.  Lord  Byron  once  patronized,  but  ever 
afterwards  turned  his  back  upon  '  The  Lite- 
rary Gazette,'  which  may  account  for  its  en- 
mity." 


202  LORD    BYRON. 

Now  the  epigram  is  not  Grub-street  wit,  and, 
as  the  reader  has  seen,  was  really  the  produc- 
tion of  the  "  noble  Bard."  The  worst  that  can 
be  said  of  it,  is  the  evidence  it  affords  of  the 
way  in  which  he  was  accustomed  to  indulge 
his  petulance  on  a  subject  he  had  better  have 
let  alone,  and  his  carelessness  in  letting  it  get 
abroad.  I  remember  jokes  of  his  upon  others, 
which  I  certainly  shall  not  suffer  to  transpire, 
and  which  he  used  to  defend,  by  saying  that 
the  parties  joked  in  the  same  manner  upon 
him. 

"  Now  this  is  worshipful  society." 

Our  author  ventures  to  think  that  Lord 
Byron  failed  in  the  drama.  His  Lordship  had 
a  shrewd  suspicion  of  it  himself.  Speaking 
one  day  of  a  manuscript  tragedy  of  mine,  which 
in  our  dearth  of  books  he  had  asked  to  read, 
he  said  he  thought  it  the  next  best  thing  I 
had  written,  to  the  "  Story  of  Rimini."  I 
said,  I  wished  I  could  think  any  thing  fa- 
vourable of  it,  even  by  courtesy  ;  but  I  could 
not.  I  was  quite  sure  that  I  had  no  faculty 
for  the  drama.  He  reflected  upon  this;  and 


LORD    BYRON.  203 

observed  in  an  under-tone  between  question 
and  no-question, — "  Perhaps  I  have  not  suc- 
ceeded in  the  drama  myself."  I  took  advan- 
tage of  the  ambiguity  of  the  tone,  to  make 
an  answer.  Had  a  stranger  been  present,  he 
might  have  thought  his  remark  a  challenge 
to  be  candid,  and  looked  upon  my  silence 
as  not  paying  it  sufficient  honour.  I  should 
have  thought  so  once  myself;  but  the  time 
for  that  delusion  was  past.  Lord  Byron  was 
always  acting,  even  when  he  capriciously  spoke 
the  truth.  He  had  hampered  himself  with 
sophistications,  till  he  could  not  break  through 
them;  and  would  have  resented  the  attempt 
to  extricate  him,  as  an  assumption  of  supe- 
riority. 

At  p.  145,  vol.  ii.  is  the  extraordinary  pic- 
ture I  have  alluded  to  respecting  an  alleged 
quarrel  of  mine  with  Lord  Byron.  Our 
author  relates  it  in  the  following  easy  and  as- 
sured style : — 

"  At  Pisa,"  quoth  he,  "  an  unfortunate  dif- 
ference took  place  between  Lord  Byron  and 
Mr.  Leigh  Hunt,  of  which  the  following  par- 
ticulars have  been  derived  from  one  of  the 


204  LORD    BYRON. 

parties  concerned.  '  Parisina'  was  considered 
by  Lord  Byron  as  the  best  of  all  his  minor 
poems ;  in  fact,  it  was  the  only  one  he  ever 
could  be  induced  to  speak  of  in  company ; 
and  when  he  did  so,  it  was  in  language  that 
silenced  all  contradiction  :  it  was  so, — and  it 
must  be  so,  seemed  to  be  the  sovereign  plea- 
sure of  him  whose  word  no  man  dared  to 
doubt,  who  wished  to  retain  any  particle  of 
his  favour.  Mr.  Snelgrove,  Lieutenant  of 
PEclair,  was  at  Leghorn,  and  of  course  a  fre- 
quent attendant  at  Pisa  at  the  time  that  Mr. 
Leigh  Hunt  was  the  constant  companion  of 
his  Lordship.  He  noticed  him  on  every  oc- 
casion, and  made  him  at  last  so  far  forget 
himself,  that  he  considered  he  had  power  and 
ability  to  criticise  the  works  of  his  great  be- 
nefactor. He  presumed  to  censure  '  Parisina  ;' 
and  Mr.  Dodd,  the  Deputy  Consul  (formerly 
clerk  to  Captain  Rowley)  traced  to  the  pen 
of  Leigh  Hunt  some  criticisms  that  had  ap- 
peared in  the  Livourna  Gazette  and  Lucca 
newspaper.  Mr.  Hunt  ought  to  have  been 
aware  how  jealous  an  author  is  of  the  dar- 
ling offspring  of  his  muse,  and  he  ought  to 


LORD    BYRON.  205 

have  spared  the  feelings,  or,  if  he  pleases,  the 
weaknesses  of  his  friend  and  benefactor.  But 
wits,  like  game-cocks,  never  spare  each  other. 
From  this  time,  our  informant  states,  that 
Lord  Byron  never  saw  or  spoke  to  Mr.  Leigh 
Hunt,  or  any  of  his  connexions." 

It  is  worth  while  to  take  this  grave  false- 
hood to  pieces  for  the  sake  of  the  grave  truths 
with  which  every  particle  of  it  can  be  set  aside. 

"  At  Pisa  an  unfortunate  difference  took 
place  between  Lord  Byron  and  Mr.  Leigh 
Hunt." 

There  was  no  difference. 

"  The  following  particulars  have  been  derived 
from  one  of  the  parties  concerned." 

There  was  no  party  concerned,  except  in  the 
invention  of  the  story.  Who  that  was,  I  can- 
not say. 

"  Parisina  was  considered  by  Lord  Byron  as 
the  best  of  all  his  minor  poems  ;  in  fact,  it  was 
the  only  one  that  he  could  ever  be  induced  to 
speak  of  in  company." 

By  no  means.  His  companions  have  heard 
him  speak  of  the  others  hundreds  of  times. 

"  And  when  he  did  so,  it  was  in  language 


LORD    BY110N. 

that  silenced  all  contradiction :  it  was  so, — and 
it  must  be  so,  seemed  to  be  the  sovereign 
pleasure  of  him  whose  word  no  man  dared  to 
doubt,  who  wished  to  retain  any  particle  of  his 
favours." 

A  pretty  notion  of  the  tenure  by  which  his 
friendship  was  to  be  held !  And  a  still  pret- 
tier specimen  of  the  sort  of  company  that  af- 
fected to  be  with  him  on  this  occasion ! 

"  Mr.  Snelgrove,  Lieutenant  of  1'Eclair,  was 
at  Leghorn,  and  of  course  a  frequent  attendant 
at  Pisa,  at  the  time  that  Mr.  Leigh  Hunt  was 
the  constant  companion  of  his  Lordship." 

Why  "  of  course  ?"  Were  all  the  visitors 
at  Leghorn  duiquitous  of  necessity  ?  Or  did 
every  man  who  happened  to  visit  Leghorn  at 
that  time,  become,  as  a  matter  of  course,  qua- 
lified to  know  every  thing  respecting  Lord 
Byron  and  his  friends  !  If  it  is  meant  to  be 
said,  that  the  story  comes  from  this  Mr.  Snel- 
grove, it  is  here  returned  to  him,  "  neat  as  im- 
ported." 

"  He  (Lord  Byron)  noticed  him  (videlicet, 
myself)  on  every  occasion,  and  made  him  at 
last  so  far  forget  himself,  that  he  considered 


LORD    BYRON.  207 

he  had  power  and  ability  to  criticise  the  works 
of  his  great  benefactor  /" 

The  awful  darings  and  "  benefactions"  I  leave 
in  the  reader's  hands :  but  whatever  might 
have  been  my  "  power  and  ability,"  another 
thing  was  wanting  to  the  criticism ;  to  wit, 
inclination.  I  am  not  accustomed  to  speak  ill 
of  the  writings  of  any  body  in  conversation, 
and  certainly  said  nothing  of  them  in  the  in- 
stance alluded  to. 

"  He  presumed  to  censure  '  Parisina,'  and 
Mr.  Dodd,  the  Deputy  Consul  (formerly  clerk 
to  Captain  Rowley)  traced  to  the  pen  of  Leigh 
Hunt  some  criticisms  that  had  appeared  in  the 
Livourna  Gazette  and  Lucca  newspaper." 

I  never  before  heard  of  Mr.  Snelgrove  the 
lieutenant,  or  Mr.  Dodd  the  former  clerk;  nor 
did  I  ever  write  any  thing  about  "  Parisina," 
nor  any  thing  in  a  foreign  paper,  nor  could 
any  criticisms  of  mine  be  traced  to  the  "  Li- 
vourna" or  Lucca  papers,  which  Lord  Byron 
himself  was  not  before  acquainted  with  in 
print.  What  is  remarkable  is,  that  to  the 
best  of  my  recollection  I  never  even  read  "  Pa- 
risina," nor  is  this  the  only  one  of  his  Lord- 


208  LORD    BYRON. 

ship's  works,  of  which  I  can  say  as  much,  ac- 
quainted as  I  am  with  the  others.  I  never 
valued  any  of  his  minor  poems,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  some  of  the  lyrics,  and  perhaps 
"Lara,"  which  I  recollect  thinking  the  best 
of  his  narratives;  and  I  mention  this,  because 
I  have  also  a  recollection,  that  he  agreed  with 
me  in  that  opinion;  though  it  may  have  been 
expressed  before  the  appearance  of  "  Parisina." 
Whether  he  liked  "Parisina,"  as  they  say  he 
did,  I  cannot  tell;  nor  is  it  of  any  conse- 
quence. He  would  have  thought  it  of  little 
consequence  himself,  knowing  his  own  versa- 
tility that  way,  and  what  contradictory  opi- 
nions he  would  utter  both  of  himself  and 
others,  a  hundred  times  in  a  week.  But  to 
proceed. 

"  Mr.  Hunt,"  quoth  our  patron  of  the  "  Life 
and  Times,"  "  ought  to  have  been  aware,  how 
jealous  an  author  is  of  the  darling  offspring 
of  his  muse,  and  he  ought  to  have  spared  the 
feelings,  or,  if  he  pleases,  the  weaknesses  of  his 
friend  and  benefactor.  But  wits,  like  game- 
cocks, never  spare  each  other.  From  this  time, 
our  informant  states,  that  Lord  J2yron  never 


BYRON.  209 


or  spoke  to  Mr.  Leigh  Hunt,  or  any  of  his 
connexions ! 

"  Ex  uno"  as  the  Captain  says,  "  disce  omnes? 
Perhaps,  after  all,  there  are  no  such  persons  as 
Mr.  Snelgrove  and  Mr.  Dodd  (Blackwood,  the 
pious  dog,  makes  nothing  of  inventing  a  few 
lieutenants) ;  or  they  may  be  very  respectable 
people,  and  know  no  more  of  the  story  than  I 
did  a  year  and  a  half  ago,  when  I  met  with 
the  "  Life  and  Times"  by  chance.  I  certainly 
should  not  have  taken  the  trouble  of  contra- 
dicting it  but  for  the  present  work.  Our  bio- 
grapher may  have  cut  it  out  with  his  scissors 
from  some  other  fictitious  narrative,  together 
with  the  opinions  he  seems  to  give  upon  it ; 
for  he  is  as  wonderful  an  author  in  his  way  as 
Lord  Byron,  being  a  great  many  other  writers 
besides  himself. 

Idle  as  this  story  is,  it  may  have  been  made 
use  of,  for  aught  I  know,  to  render  Lord 
Byron  uneasy  in  my  society.  To  be  sure,  he 
never  hinted  to  me  a  syllable  of  any  thing  of 
the  sort.  He  knew,  if  he  did,  that  he  should 
get  at  the  truth,  as  far  as  I  was  concerned. 
But  it  is  not  impossible,  that  notwithstanding 

VOL.  i.  p 


210  LORD    BYRON. 

what  he  knew  of  me,  his  own  habit  of  speak- 
ing against  his  friends  might  have  rendered 
him  doubtful  whether  circumstances  had  not 
provoked  me  to  do  as  much  for  him.  At  all 
events,  being  vicious  on  that  score,  he  was 
naturally  suspicious ;  and  if  I  took  no  advan- 
tage of  his  weaknesses,  others  were  not  so  scru- 
pulous. People  came  to  him  from  as  many 
quarters  as  there  are  foolish  and  envious  per- 
sons, to  try  and  break  up  our  connexion ;  and 
they  would  not  stick  at  a  trifle  to  effect  their 
purpose. 

It  would  be  loss  of  time,  on  almost  every 
other  subject,  to  go  on  contradicting  the  heap 
of  absurdities  that  our  compiler  has  gathered 
together.  But  the  minutest  details  respecting 
Lord  Byron  have  not  yet  lost  their  interest 
with  the  public :  it  is  useful  to  show  how 
many  falsehoods  have  been  told  them;  and  in 
contradicting  this  one  publication  I  contradict 
twenty  others,  the  scandalous  ones  included. 

Our  author  has  no  sooner  done  with  this 
story,  than,  as  if  drunk  with  credulity,  and 
resolved  to  keep  it  up  to  the  last  syllable,  he 
goes  on  compiling  and  believing  at  a  most 


LORD    BYRON.  211 

glorious  rate.  There  is  a  favourite  passage  in 
the  Calvinist  hymn-books,  which  tells  the  un- 
godly to  stand  upon  no  ceremony  in  becoming 
proselytes,  not  to  be  ashamed  of  any  contra- 
diction the  most  barefaced,  or  to  think  of  wait- 
ing to  change  a  rag  of  their  rascality. 

ff  Come  wretched,  come  ragged,  come  filthy,  come  bare ; 
You  can't  come  too  filthy  ;  come  just  as  you  are." 

Just  in  the  same  manner  our  compiler,  scissors 
in  hand,  calls  the  gossips  and  the  anonymous 
writers  about  him,  proposing  not  even  to  cast 
away  their  rags  when  they  come,  but  to  turn 
them  to  account,  and  preserve  every  particle  of 
them  for  their  mutual  honour  and  profit ; — 

"  Come  writers  on  Byron,  come  liars,  come  fools ; 

You  can't  come  too  lying  : — come,  lend  us  your  tools." 

The  account  that  follows  at  p.  146,  of  Lord 
Byron's  residence  at  Pisa,  was  probably  some 
direct  invention,  made  for  a  magazine  at  the 
time,  and  duly  served  up  hot  to  the  public, 
after  which  our  author  has  it  cold  for  his  col- 
lation. 

"  Lord  Byron,  while  at  Pisa,  resided  near  the 
p  2 


212  LORD    BYRQN. 

Leaning  Tower,  at  Signora  Dominesia's,  a  lady 
who  keeps  several  small  houses,"  &c. 

Particular  rogue!  Lord  Byron,  while  at 
Pisa,  lived  in  the  Casa  Lanfranchi,  a  palace  in 
the  High  Street  of  that  city,  called  the  Lung'- 
Arno.  I  am  not  sure  whether  he  might  not 
have  put  up  at  some  lodging-house  for  a  night 
or  so. 

"  With  the  Grand  Duke,  Lord  Byron  was 
intimate." 

He  never  exchanged  a  word  with  him.  He 
told  me  he  had  often  been  given  to  understand 
that  his  presence  would  have  been  welcome 
at  Court,  and  that  the  Grand  Duchess  in  par- 
ticular (a  princess  of  the  House  of  Saxony) 
wished  to  see  him  ;  but  that  he  bad  an  invinci- 
ble antipathy  to  going.  I  believe  his  lameness 
alone  gave  him  a  dislike  to  appearing  at  any 
Court,  setting  aside  the  consideration  that 
might  have  rendered  it  unpleasant  in  Italy, 
after  the  connexions  he  had  made  with  people 
not  in  favour. — Of  the  story  of  the  banker, 
which  is  connected  with  this  intimacy  with  the 
Grand  Duke,  I  know  nothing ;  nor  of  twenty 
others  selected  with  the  same  confidence ;  but 


LORD    BYRON.  213 

as  I  observed  before,  the  fictions  with  which 
every  thing  I  do  know  is  mixed  up  arid  made 
absurd,  hinder  one  from  taking  a  particle  of  any 
thing  else  for  granted. 

"  Canova  chiselled  out  four  busts  for  him." 
P.  149. 

Canova,  to  the  best  of  my  recollection, 
never  did  any  thing  for  him.  It  was  Bartolini 
who  made  his  bust,  and  very  dissatisfied  he 
was  with  it.  He  said  it  made  him  look  old ; 
and  could  not  bear  any  body  to  think  it  like. 

"  This  second  time  he  fixed  his  quarters  at 
Pisa  with  a  Mrs.  Wilson,  whose  husband  had 
been  clerk  in  a  counting-house  at  Leghorn. 
With  this  old  lady  he  frequently  strolled." 

He  strolled  with  nobody.  Whenever  he 
went  out,  it  was  on  horseback,  or  in  a  carriage. 
He  did  not  like  to  be  seen  walking,  on  account 
of  his  lameness ;  and  besides,  it  would  have 
put  him  to  bodily  pain. 

"  Lord  Byron  was  every  inch  an  English- 
man; a  true-born  Briton,  of  so  patriotic  a 
spirit,"  &c. 

He  cared  nothing  at  all  for  England.  He 
disliked  the  climate ;  he  disliked  the  manners 


214  LOUD    BY11ON. 

of  the  people  ;  he  did  not  think  them  a  bit  bet- 
ter than  other  nations :  and  had  he  entertained 
all  these  opinions  in  a  spirit  of  philosophy,  he 
would  have  been  right ;  for  it  does  not  become 
a  man  of  genius  to  "  give  up"  even  to  his  coun- 
try, "  what  is  meant  for  mankind."  He  was 
not  without  some  of  this  spirit ;  but  undoubt- 
edly his  greatest  dislike  of  England  was  ow- 
ing to  what  he  had  suffered  there,  and  to  the 
ill  opinion  which  he  thought  was  entertained 
of  him.  It  was  this  that  annoyed  him  in 
Southey.  I  believe  if  he  entertained  a  mean 
opinion  of  the  talents  of  any  body,  it  was  of 
Southey's ;  and  he  had  the  greatest  contempt 
for  his  political  conduct  (a  feeling  which  is 
more  common  with  men  of  letters  than  Mr. 
Southey  fancies)  ;*  but  he  believed  that  the 

*  I  know  one  of  the  most  eminent  writers  of  the  day,  not 
implicated  in  any  violent  politics,  who  looks  upon  Mr.  Sou- 
they as  at  once  a  half-witted  egotist,  and  something  includ- 
ing every  offence  which  he  is  fond  of  attributing  to  others. 
This  opinion  is  not  mine,  silly  as  I  hold  the  Laureat  to  be  in 
some  things,  and  not  half  so  wise  or  so  good  as  he  takes  him- 
self to  be  in  others ;  but  it  may  serve  to  show  him  (if  any 
thing  can)  that  he  is  not  free  from  as  bad  a  repute  with  some, 
as  he  would  cast  upon  Lord  Byron. 


LORD    BYKON.  21.5 

formal  and  the  foolish  composed  the  vast  body 
of  the  middle  orders  in  England ;  with  these 
he  looked  upon  Mr.  Southey  as  in  great  esti- 
mation :  and  whatever  he  did  to  risk  indi- 
vidual good  opinion, — however  he  preferred 
fame  and  a  "  sensation,"  at  all  hazards, —  he 
did  not  like  to  be  thought  ill  of  by  any  body 
of  people.  Individual  opinion  he  could  dare, 
could  provoke,  could  put  to  the  most  mortify- 
ing trials,  could  childishly  throw  away ;  but 
after  the  publication  of  Beppo  and  Don  Juan, 
and  the  new  popularity  they  gave  him  (which 
I  will  venture  to  say  was  a  great  surprise  to 
him,  and  a  no  less  edifying  symptom  on  the 
part  of  the  British  public),  he  began  to  think 
himself  safe  again  with  regard  to  bodies  of 
society,  and  was  exceedingly  enraged  to  be 
waked  up  out  of  his  dream.  He  fancied  that, 
in  turning  the  laugh  against  Southey,  he  should 
have  rendered  the  public  unwilling  to  hear 
him  ;  perhaps  have  ousted  him  from  the  Quar- 
terly Review ;  forgetting,  that  all  which  the 
public  care  for  on  these  occasions,  is  what  the 
by-standers  care  for,  when  a  ring  is  made  for 
a  couple  of  boxers.  He  found  that  Southey 


216  LORD   BYKON, 

could  still  write  in  the  "  Quarterly,"  and  read 
him  a  lecture ;  and  however  sure  the  Laureat 
was  to  make  the  lecture  an  exposure  of  his 
own  folly  and  conceit,  there  were  too  many 
hits  in  it  at  his  Lordship's  weak  points  not  to 
distress  him  sorely,  and  make  him  mad  with 
vexation  at  having  subjected  himself  to  such 
an  antagonist.  However,  if  he  had  not  the 
last  word,  he  had  the  best.  All  Southey's  at- 
tacks are  commonplaces  and  fumes  of  "  Mal- 
volio,"  compared  with  the  Vision  of  Judgment 
— the  most  masterly  satire  that  has  appeared 
since  the  time  of  Pope. 

Of  Lord  Byron's  defence  of  "  Cain,"  our  au- 
thor says,  that  "  if  it  does  riot  wholly  excul- 
pate him,  it  at  least  proves,  that  he  is  less  cul- 
pable than  all  the  ancient  writers  of  mysteries ; 
than  Milton  and  Goethe ; — at  all  events,  that 
he  had  no  intention  of  offending  morality,  or 
the  tender  consciences  of  timid  men." 

Lord  Byron's  defence  was,  that  "  if  *  Cain' 
was  blasphemous,  '  Paradise  Lost'  was  blas- 
phemous. *  Cain,' "  said  he,  "  was  nothing 
more  than  a  drama,  not  a  piece  of  argument. 
If  Lucifer  and  Cain  speak  as  the  first  rebel 


LORD    BYRON.  21? 

and  the  first  murderer  may  be  supposed  to 
speak,  nearly  all  the  rest  of  the  personages 
talk  also  according  to  their  character ;  and  the 
stronger  passions  have  ever  been  permitted  to 
the  drama." 

This  is  not  sincere.  "  Cain"  was  undoubt- 
edly meant  as  an  attack  upon  the  crude  no- 
tions of  the  Jews  respecting  evil  and  its  origin.  * 
Lord  Byron  might  not  have  thought  much 
about  the  matter,  when  he  undertook  to  write 
it;  but  such  was  his  feeling.  He  was  con- 
scious of  it ;  and  if  he  had  not  been,  Mr.  Shel- 
ley would  not  have  suffered  him  to  be  other- 
wise. But  the  case  is  clear  from  internal  evi- 
dence. Milton,  in  his  "  Paradise  Lost,"  in- 
tended nothing  against  the  religious  opinions 
of  his  time ;  Lord  Byron  did.  The  reader  of 
the  two  poems  feels  certain  of  this ;  and  he  is 
right.  It  is  true,  the  argumentative  part  of 
the  theology  of  Milton  was  so  bad,  that  a  sus- 
picion has  crossed  the  minds  of  some  in  these 
latter  times,  whether  he  was  not  purposely 
arguing  against  himself;  but  a  moment's  re- 
collection of  his  genuine  character  and  history 
does  it  away.  Milton  was  as  decidedly  a  CaU 


218  LORD    BYRON. 

vinist  at  the  time  he  wrote  "  Paradise  Lost," 
and  subject  to  all  the  gloomy  and  degrading 
sophistries  of  his  sect,  as  he  certainly  altered  his 
opinions  afterwards,  and  subsided  in  a  more 
Christian  Christianity.  Lord  Byron,  with  a 
greater  show  of  reason,  and  doubtless  with  a 
genuine  wonder  (for  he  reasoned  very  little  on 
any  thing),  asks  "  what  the  Methodists  would 
say  to  Goethe's  *  Faust  ?'  His  devil,"  says  he, 
"  not  only  talks  very  familiarly  of  heaven,  but 
very  familiarly  in  heaven.  What  would  they 
think,"  he  continues,  "  of  the  colloquies  of  Me- 
phistophiles  and  his  pupil,  or  the  more  daring 
language  of  the  prologue,  which  not  one  of  us 
will  venture  to  translate  ?  And  yet  this  play  is 
not  only  tolerated  and  admired,  as  every  thing 
he  wrote  must  be,  but  acted  in  Germany.  Are 
the  Germans  then  a  less  moral  people  than  we 
are?  I  doubt  it." 

No :  they  are  not :  but  they  have  got  be- 
yond us  in  these  speculative  matters  ;  at  least, 
as  a  nation.  It  is  the  case  with  other  nations, 
to  whom  we  set  the  example  as  individuals. 
We  have  something  of  the  practical  indecision 
of  first  thinkers  about  us.  We  start  a  point 


LORD    BYRON.  219 

of  knowledge  and  reformation,  and  then  out  of 
the  very  conscience  that  has  forced  us  to  do  it, 
shrink  back  from  pursuing  it  through  its  con- 
sequences. Lord  Byron  may  well  question 
those  as  to  their  right  of  tolerating  Goethe, 
who,  without  knowing  him  thoroughly,  will 
put  up  with  any  thing  he  writes,  because  he 
is  a  foreigner,  a  great  name,  and  a  minister 
with  orders  at  his  button-hole.  But  Goethe 
did  not  write,  as  Lord  Byron  did,  without 
knowing  his  subject  and  himself,  or  without 
being  prepared  with  a  succedaneum  for  the 
opinions  he  was  displacing, — one,  too,  that 
could  reconcile  those  very  opinions  to  the  past 
condition  of  society,  and  even  connect  them 
and  their  very  contradictions  with  the  nobler 
views  by  which  they  are  displaced.  Lord 
Byron  was  a  helper  in  a  cause  nobler  than  he 
was  aware  of,  and  he  was  not  without  the  com- 
forts of  an  instinct  to  that  effect;  but  his 
unsubdued  and  unreflecting  passions  had  not 
allowed  him  to  be  properly  conscious  of  it. 
By  the  same  defect  he  subjected  himself  to 
questions  which  he  could  not  answer ;  and, 
because  he  was  not  prepared  with  good  argu- 


220  LORD    BVRON. 

merits,  resorted  to  bad  and  insincere  ones,  which 
deceived  nobody.  % 

The  world  have  been  much  puzzled  by  Lord 
Byron's  declaring  himself  a  Christian,  every 
now  and  then,  in  some  part  of  his  writings  or 
conversations,  and  giving  them  to  understand 
in  a  hundred  others  that  he  was  none.  The 
truth  is,  he  did  not  know  what  he  was;  and 
this  is  the  case  with  hundreds  of  the  people 
who  wonder  at  him.  I  have  touched  this 
matter  before;  but  will  add  a  word  or  two. 
He  was  a  Christian  by  education :  he  was  an 
infidel  by  reading.  He  was  a  Christian  by 
habit ;  he  was  no  Christian  upon  reflection.  I 
use  the  word  here  in  its  ordinary  acceptation, 
and  not  in  its  really  Christian  and  philosophical 
sense,  as  a  believer  in  the  endeavour  and  the 
universality,  which  are  the  consummation  of 
Christianity.  His  faith  was  certainly  not 
swallowed  up  in  charity ;  but  his  charity,  after 
all,  was  too  much  for  it.  In  short,  he  was  not 
a  Christian,  in  the  sense  understood  by  that 
word ;  otherwise  he  would  have  had  no  doubts 
about  the  matter,  nor  (as  I  have  before  noticed) 
would  he  have  spoken  so  irreverently  upon 


LOUD    BYRON.  221 

matters  in  which  no  Christian  of  this  sort  in- 
dulges licence  of  speech.  Bigoted  Christians 
of  all  sects  take  liberties  enough,  God  knows. 
They  are  much  profaner  than  any  devout 
Deist  ever  thinks  of  being;  but  still  their 
profanities  are  not  of  a  certain  kind.  They 
would  not  talk  like  Voltaire,  or  say  with  Lord 
Byron,  that  upon  Mr.  Wordsworth's  showing, 
"  Carnage  must  be  Christ's  sister."* 

*  Mr.  Wordsworth  says  in  his  "  Thanksgiving  Ode  for  the 
Battle  of  Waterloo,"  that  "  Carnage  is  God's  daughter." 

"  But  thy  most  dreaded  instrument, 
In  working  out  a  pure  intent, 
Is  man,  arrayed  for  mutual  slaughter  ; 
Yea,  Carnage  is  thy  daughter." 

How  poor  and  wilful,  how  presumptuous,  and  at  the  same 
time  misgiving, — how  full  of  a  pretended  right  to  say  the 
boldest  and  most  shocking  things  unexplained,  in  the  very 
vindication  of  meekness  and  humility,  and  to  let  us  think 
what  we  please  of  it,  because  he  has  might  and  orthodoxy  on 
his  side, — is  this  sullen  ebullition,  this  thump  of  a  doubtful 
fist  on  a  pulpit  cushion,  compared  with  the  kindly  and  noble 
exposition  which  Goethe  would  have  given  us  of  the  possible 
necessity  of  past  warfare,  in  one  of  his  transcendant  allego- 
ries !  The  more  I  know  of  Goethe,  and  think  of  the  Lake 
poets,  the  more  I  see  how  much  they  have  owed  to  him,  and 
how  ill  they  have  understood  it. 


222  LORD    BYRON. 

P.  336,  vol.  ii.  "  There  is  no  man,  nor  well 
educated  woman  in  Italy,  that  cannot  quote 
all  the  finer  passages  of  the  favourite  author 
(Dante)."  (A  great  mistake.)  "  The  Guiccioli 
could  repeat  almost  all  the  Divine  Comedy." — 
Three  volumes  of  stern  writing  about  Hell, 
Purgatory,  and  Paradise  !  Credat  Medwin  ! 
I  remember  very  well,  that  his  Lordship's  fair 
friend  was  quite  horrified  at  the  poem  of  An- 
drea di  Basso,  a  writer  of  a  Dantesque  order 
of  mind,  quoted  in  the  "  Indicator."  It  was 
addressed  to  the  corpse  of  a  proud  beauty. 
Lord  Byron  showed  it  her  to  enjoy  her  impa- 
tience. She  was  quite  vexed  and  mortified, 
and  wondered  how  I  could  translate  so  shock- 
ing an  author.  * 

*  As  Andrea  de  Basso  is  not  easily  to  be  met  with,  the 
reader  is  presented  with  a  specimen   of  what  frightened  the 

lady : 

"  Risorga  dalla  tomba  avara  e  lorda 

La  putrida  tua  salma,  o  donna  cruda, 

Or  che  di  spirto  nuda 

E  cieca  e  muta  e  sorda 

Ai  vermi  dai  pastura  ; 

E  da  la  prima  altura 

Da  fiera  morte  scossa 

Fai  tuo  letto  una  fossa. 


LORD    BYRON.  223 

Vol.  ii.  p.  355.     "  Byron's  vanity,  or,  to  give 
it  a  milder  and  perhaps  more  appropriate  term, 

Notte,  continua  notte, 
Ti  divora  ed  inghiotte  ; 
E  la  puzza  ti  smembra 
Le  si  pastose  membra, 
E  ti  stai  fitta,  fitta  per  dispetto, 
Come  animal  immondo  al  laccio  stretto. 
"  Vedrai  se  ognun  di  te  mettra  paura, 
E  fuggira  come  garzon  la  sera 
Da  1'  ombra  lunga  e  nera 
Che  striscia  per  le  mura ; 
Vedrai  se  a  la  tua  vose 
Cedran  le  alme  pietose  ; 
Vedrai  se  al  tuo  invitare 
Alcun  vorra  cascare ; 
Vedrai  se  seguiranti 
Le  turbe  de  gli  amanti, 
E  se  il  di  porterai 
Per  dove  passerai, 
O  pur  se  spargerai  tenebre  e  lezzo, 
Tal  che  a  ti  stessa  verrai  in  disprezzo." 

Rise  from  the  loathsome  and  devouring  tomb, 
Give  up  thy  body,  woman  without  heart, 
Now  that  its  worldly  part 
Is  over ;  and  deaf,  blind,  and  dumb, 
Thou  servest  worms  for  food, 
And  from  thine  altitude 


224  LORD    BYRON. 

his  love  of  fame,  was  excessive;  but  it  was 
erroneous,  as  well  as  ungenerous,  to  attribute 
to  him  so  inordinate  a  thirst  for  it,  as  to  wish 
to  monopolize  it  all  to  himself.  It  has  been 
stated  that  he  was  exorbitantly  desirous  of 
being  the  sole  object  of  interest,  whether  in 
the  circle  in  which  he  was  living,  or  in  the 

Fierce  death  has  shaken  thee  down,  and  thou  dost  fit 

Thy  bed  within  a  pit. 

Night,  endless  night  hath  got  thee, 

To  clutch  and  to  englut  thee ; 

And  rottenness  confounds 

Thy  limbs  and  their  sleek  rounds, 

And  thou  art  stuck  there,  stuck  there  in  despite, 

Like  a  foul  animal  in  a  trap  at  night. 

Come  in  the  public  path  and  see  how  all 
Shall  fly  thee,  as  a  child  goes  shrieking  back 
From  something  long  and  black, 
That  mocks  along  the  wall. 
See  if  the  kind  will  stay 
To  hear  what  thou  would'st  say ; 
See  if  thine  arms  can  win 
One  soul  to  think  of  sin  ; 
See  if  the  tribe  of  wooers 
Will  now  become  pursuers ; 
And  if  where  they  make  way, 
Thou  'It  carry,  now,  the  day ; 
Or  whether  thou  wilt  spread  not  such  foul  night, 
That  thou  thyself  shalt  feel  the  shudder,  and  the  fright." 


LORD    BYKON.  225 

wider  sphere  of  the  world ;  he  could  bear  no 
rival ;  he  could  not  tolerate  the  person  who 
attracted  attention  from  himself ;  he  instantly 
became  animated  with  a  bitter  interest,  and 
hated,  for  the  time,  every  greater  or  more  cele- 
brated man  than  himself.  He  carried  his  jea- 
lousy up  even  to  Bonaparte ;  and  it  was  the 
secret  of  his  contempt  of  Wellington.  It  was 
dangerous  for  his  friends  to  rise  in  the  world ; 
if  they  valued  not  his  friendship  more  than 
their  own  fame,  he  hated  them.  All  this  is  a 
gross  misrepresentation." 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  truth  in  it. 

"  Eager  as  was  his  appetite  for  fame,  the 
consciousness  of  his  own  excellence  set  him 
above  the  meanness  of  envy  or  jealousy  ;  and 
he  was  ever  ready  to  give  every  candidate  for 
popularity  his  due  share  of  merit." 

A  mistake,  as  I  have  shown  before.  It  is 
the  same  with  his  jealousy.  But  the  above 
passages  have  suggested  a  farther  remark  or 
two.  I  believe  he  would  not  have  been  so 
jealous,  had  he  not  taken  it  for  a  strength, 
instead  of  a  weakness,  to  give  way  to  every 
thing  in  the  extreme.  He  might  have  allowed 

VOL.  I.  Q 


226  LORD    BYRON. 

it  to  be  a  weakness  in  one  sense;  but  he 
thought  these  kind  of  excesses  indicative  of 
greatness  ;  and  out  of  the  concession,  the  vin- 
dication, or  whatever  else  it  might  be  according 
to  circumstances,  he  extracted,  above  all,  food 
for  his  love  of  astonishing.  Southey  hit  him 
rightly  there.  He  did  not  care  what  he  did  to 
astonish  the  world,  but  then  he  was  shocked 
if  the  world  did  not  think  the  best  of  it.  He 
thought  they  would,  because  he  did  it ;  and 
was  much  mortified  to  discover,  that  every 
body,  whose  good  word  he  thought  worth 
having,  was  not  of  that  opinion.  He  then,  in 
his  spleen,  was  for  thinking  himself  unjustly 
diminished  in  reputation  ;  and  so  he  went  on, 
between  excessive  confidence  and  resenting 
doubt,  "playing  the  spoiled  child  of  fame,  and 
alternately  lording  it  over  the  public,  or  sulk- 
ing in  a  corner.  I  have  no  doubt  he  was 
jealous  at  times  of  every  body  who  interested 
the  world ;  but  as  he  thought  nobody  really 
greater  than  himself,  he  became  reconciled  the 
next  minute,  and  could  like  the  favourites  of 
the  public,  and  relish  their  works  as  much  as 
any  body,  partly  because  their  acceptance  of  the 


LORD    BYRON.  227 

world  reminded  him  of  his  own  greater  accept- 
ance. For  this  reason,  he  was  not  so  jealous  of 
writers  whom  he  thought  popular,  as  of  some, 
Mr.  Wordsworth,  for  instance,  whose  claims  he 
could  not  so  well  define,  and  who,  he  suspect- 
ed, might  turn  out  some  day  or  other  to  be 
the  greater  men.  In  his  anxiety,  also,  to  iden- 
tify his  admirers  with  those  who  conferred 
existing  reputation,  he  was  as  anxious  to  ac- 
knowledge the  merits  of  all  the  writers  in  fa- 
shion, as  he  was  careful  of  not  committing 
himself  with  the  rest.  All  his  public  praises, 
it  is  to  be  observed,  were  bestowed  upon 
Scott,  Moore,  Campbell,  and  others,  not  ex- 
cepting Rogers;  in  short,  every  body  who 
pleased  "  the  town."  In  his  eulogies  of  these, 
he  was  warm.  Shelley  he  did  not  dare  to  ac- 
knowledge, even  as  a  visitor.  Keats  he  would 
never  have  said  a  word  of,  had  he  not  discover- 
ed, that  the  author  of  "  Hyperion,"  besides 
being  dead,  was  an  admirer  of  "  Don  Juan ;" 
and  then  he  was  afraid  of  committing  himself 
too  much.  He  must  couple  his  good  word 
with  a  sarcasm.  His  latter  connexion  with 
myself  arose  out  of  circumstances  ;  out  of  the 

Q  2 


228  LORD    BYRON. 

secret  influence  that  Shelley  had  over  him,  his 
immediate  quarrel  with  his  publishers  and  ad- 
visers, and  his  hope  of  getting  money,  and 
striking  a  new  blow  that  should  astonish  both 
friends  and  enemies.  But  this  I  have  ex- 
plained before.  Connected  with  me  or  not, 
he  would  never  have  said  a  word  to  my  advan- 
tage, unless  we  had  carried  all  before  us,  and 
the  coteries  themselves  had  been  conquered. 
He  was  so  cautious  of  turning  the  public  at- 
tention upon  any  body  whom  he  considered 
as  not  in  fashion,  and  at  the  same  time  so  jea- 
lous of  being  thought  indebted  to  any  such 
person  for  a  hint,  that  he  was  disconcerted  at 
'the  mention  I  made,  in  "  The  Liberal,"  of  the 
Specimen  of  an  intended  National  Poem,  since 
called,  The  Monks  and  the  Giants,  the  precur- 
sor of  "  Beppo"  and  "  Don  Juan."  In  vain 
had  "  Don  Juan"  avoided  the  mistake  which 
hindered  the  Specimen  from  succeeding ;  in 
vain  it  was,  in  every  sense  of  the  word,  a 
greater  work :  and  in  vain,  great  as  it  was, 
were  the  readers  of  Italian  aware,  that  twenty 
poems  existed  in  that  language,  which  hin- 
dered it  from  being  an  original  in  point  of 


LOUD    BYRON.  229 

style.  He  did  not  like  that  any  thing  should 
be  mentioned,  which  deprived  him  of  a  par- 
ticle of  fame,  well  or  ill  grounded.  A  refe- 
rence to  the  Specimen  did  not  please  him  :  I 
doubt  whether  he  was  not  sorry  that  a  speci- 
men of  Ricciardetto  was  given  at  the  same 
time ;  and  (with  the  exception  of  Coleridge, 
who  had  visited  and  complimented  him,  and 
whom  he  thought  too  unpopular  to  be  made 
otherwise)  the  only  instance  in  which  I  ever 
knew  him  to  volunteer  the  mention  of  an  au- 
thor, not  in  repute,  or  to  recommend  it  to 
another,  was  a  request  he  made  me  to  speak 
well,  on  the  same  occasion,  of  Lord  Glenber- 
vie's  translation  of  the  First  Canto  of  that 
poem ! — an  honour  to  "  The  Liberal,"  to  the 
"  National  Poem,"  and  to  myself,  which  I  was 
obliged  to  decline.  Lord  Glenbervie,  who,  I 
believe,  was  a  very  good  old  gentleman,  had 
done  two  good  things  in  the  eyes  of  his  recom- 
mender ;  he  had  quoted  a  couplet  of  "  Don 
Juan,"  and  written  a  harmless  version. — Such 
were  the  little  things  which  Lord  Byron,  in 
his  false  estimate  of  human  nature,  thought  it 
great  to  do. 


LORD    BYRON. 

At  p.  20,  vol.  iii.  is  a  pleasant  letter  from 
an  American, — one  of  the  best  that  has  been 
written  about  Lord  Byron,  and  describing  him 
in  one  of  his  pleasantest  moments.  I  have 
explained  why  he  was  partial  to  the  Ameri- 
cans, and  felt  at  his  ease  in  their  company. 

. ..."  I  intend  to  visit  America  as  soon  as  I 
can  arrange  my  affairs  in  Italy.  Your  morals 
are  much  purer  than  those  of  England  (there, 
says  the  American,  /  laughed)  ;  those  of  the 
higher  classes  of  England  are  become  very  cor- 
rupt (I  smothered  my  laugh).  Do  you  think, 
if  I  were  to  live  in  America,  they  would  ever 
make  me  a  Judge  of  the  Ten  Pound  Court  ?" 

Upon  this  passage  our  compiler  says,  "  Whe- 
ther or  not  Brother  Jonathan  intended  to  quizz 
Lord  Byron,  it  seems  pretty  evident  that  his 
Lordship  was  quizzing  Brother  Jonathan.  His 
expressing  a  doubt  whether  the  Americans 
would  make  him  a  Judge  of  the  Ten  Pound 
Court,  conveyed  his  Lordship's  opinion,  that 
literary  merit  met  with  but  very  poor  encou- 
ragement in  the  United  States;  and  when 
he  talked  of  their  morals  being  much  purer 
than  those  of  England,  Brother  Jonathan 


LOUD    BYRON. 

laughed,  and  well  he  might;  for,  take  the 
United  States,  from  northward  to  southward 
(we  speak  of  the  coast,  not  of  the  inland  parts), 
there  is  not  more  licentiousness  to  be  found 
in  any  part  of  England,  not  excepting  those 
sinks  of  vice,  the  seaport  towns  of  Plymouth, 
Portsmouth,  or  the  Wapping  district  of  Lon- 
don. A  residence  of  some  years,  in  all  those 
eastern  parts  of  the  United  States,  authorizes 
us  to  speak  pretty  decidedly  on  that  point." 

"  Now  Brother  Jonathan"  did  not  laugh  be- 
cause the  Americans  were  more  or  less  moral 
than  the  English,  but  because  Lord  Byron  talk- 
ed about  morals  at  all.  He  thought  it  was  like 
a  bon-vivant  shaking  his  head  at  the  gour- 
mands. His  Lordship,  however,  affected  no- 
thing on  that  point.  He  might  have  appeared 
to  over-do  the  gravity  of  his  ethics,  and  to  in- 
tend something  mock-heroical ;  but  he  was  as 
little  in  the  habit  of  defending  his  own  morals, 
as  he  did  those  of  high  life  in  general.  He 
philosophized  very  ill  upon  both.  On  the  lat- 
ter he  was  accustomed  to  express  himself  very 
broadly.  I  have  heard  him  say  many  times, 
that,  for  all  their  face-making,  the  morals  of 


232  LORD    BYRON. 

the  English  aristocracy   were  not  a  whit   bet- 
ter than  those  of  France  or  any  other  nation. 
At  the  same  time,  it  must  be  recollected,  that 
he   had  not  been   in   the  habit  of  associating 
with  the   staider  part  of  it.     Nevertheless,  I 
believe   it   will   not  be  denied  by   any   body 
acquainted    with    the   world,   that   the   upper 
classes   are   still  less   restrained   in   their   con- 
duct  on    certain   points,    than   their   country- 
men suppose  them  to  be.     The  truth  is,  that 
leisure,   luxury,   and    the    cultivation    of  the 
graces,  naturally  tend  to  a  relaxation  of  the 
received  notions   of  morality;    and  hypocrisy 
being  more  immediately  convenient  than  plain- 
dealing,   and   therefore  in   the  long  run  pro- 
nounced necessary  (which  is  an  opinion  pre- 
valent in  more  classes  than  one),  it  is  not  con- 
sidered how  far  the  notions  themselves  might 
be  improved  and  rendered  harmless  (as  in  the 
case,  for  instance,  of  a  greater  facility  of  di- 
vorce), but  education  teaching  one  thing  and 
custom  another,  the  conscience  and  the  heart 
become  injured ;  and  intrigue  in  high  life  has 
ultimately   the   same   ill   effect    in   producing 
false   and   melancholy   impressions   of  human 


LORD    BYRON.  233 

nature,  as  tricks  of  trade  do  among  the  middle 
classes.     "  But  how  is  the  world  to  be  altered  ?" 
cry  both   classes  : — "  It   is   the  same  as  it  has 
ever  been,  and  as  it  ever  will  be."     Is  it  so? 
That,  I  suspect,  is   more   than  you  or  1  can 
tell.     Oh   profound,  ancient,   sure,   and   unal- 
terable world,  that  have  a  history  at  least  four 
thousand   years  old,    (a    mighty  sum  in  eter- 
nity !)  and   are   all   as  naked   as   savages,  and 
have  not  altered  a  jot  of  your  customs  since 
polygamy   was  in  fashion,   and   children   were 
offered  to    Moloch  ! — It  is   as   idle  to  talk  of 
the  unalterableness  of  any  thing  human,  as  it 
is  of  the  necessity  of  falsehood.     What  have 
become  of  our  own  previous  customs, — hun- 
dreds of  them  ?     Of  the  conjugal  strictness  of 
the  Italians  ?      Of  the  rack   and  the  inquisi- 
tion ?     Of  Popery  in  England,  king-worship 
in  France,  and  hopelessness  in  South  America  ? 
There   is   a   sect   among   us    (the   Moravians), 
whose  tradesmen  will  not  tell  a  lie  upon  any 
consideration,    even    about    a    stocking   or   a 
Dutch  doll.     These   people  do  not  get  a  jot 
the   less  money  than  other  tradesmen.     It  is 
possible,  though   not  very  likely,  considering 


234  LORD    BYRON. 

the  rarity  of  the  thing,  that  they  may  be 
slower  in  getting  it ;  but  they  are  sure,  for 
so  is  the  purchaser ;  and  they  do  not  spoil, 
by  the  way,  the  enjoyments  they  look  to, 
because  they  retain  that  lively  sense  of  their 
own  worth,  which  continues  them  in  a  good 
opinion  of  others  and  of  existence. 

But  I  digress.  — "  Lord  Byron,"  says  the 
author  of  the  "  Thousand  and  One  Byronian 
bites,"  vol.  iii.  p.  36,  "  was  wandering,  during 
the  autumn  of  the  year  1822,  on  the  eastern 
shores  of  Italy,  without  any  settled  determi- 
nation where  to  take  up  his  winter-quarters, 
when  chance  brought  him  into  the  town  of 
Vado,  and  the  Blossom,  British  sloop-of-war, 
into  the  bay,  where  she  anchored.  The  cap- 
tain landed,  and  as  he  entered  the  hotel,  met 
with  Lord  Byron,  and  recognized  him  through 
the  disguise  of  a  mountain  farmer,  with  a 
fowling-piece  under  his  arm.  They  were  old 
friends,  and  the  meeting  on  both  sides  was 
cordial  and  sincere.  Captain  Stewart  spent 
several  days  on  the  mountains  with  his  friend, 
who  lodged  at  a  farm-house,  perfectly  incog. 
and  attended  only  by  one  Italian  servant. 


LORD    BYRON.  235 

"  The  Blossom,  it  was  intended,  should  re- 
main for  some  months  at  Genoa  to  protect  the 
British  maritime  rights,  and  proceed  to  Smyrna 
in  the  Spring  with  a  convoy.  Lord  Byron 
agreed  to  accompany  and  pass  the  winter  in 
the  same  place  in  the  society  of  his  newly- 
found  friend ;  they  arrived  at  Genoa  without 
accident,  and  his  Lordship  fixed  himself  in  one 
wing  of  an  ancient  palace,  situated  in  that  part 
of  the  city  called  the  *  Mount  of  Albaro,'  dis- 
tant from  the  noise  of  the  port  and  disagreeable 
effluvia  of  the  markets." 

Not  a  word  of  truth  in  this.  He  was  living 
quietly  at  Albaro,  as  little  wandering,  or  able 
to  wander,  as  need  be ;  but  studying,  it  is  true, 
how  he  might  contrive  to  wander.  Our  com- 
piler is  in  one  of  his  highest  states  of  the  be- 
lieving in  this  part  of  his  work.  He  proceeds 
to  extract  from  a  magazine  one  of  the  few  let- 
ters about  Lord  Byron  that  are  worth  any 
thing ;  and  then  undertakes  to  convict  it  of  a 
series  of  mistakes,  by  a  series  of  the  most  ex- 
traordinary mistakes  of  his  own.  The  letter 
(to  complete  the  curiosity  of  it)  appeared  in 
"  Black  wood's  Magazine," — a  strange  place  in 


236  LORD    BYHON. 

which  to  recognize  my  old  schoolfellow  who 
wrote  it ; — but  he  is  a  good  fellow,  and  has  a 
right  to  his  universalities.  What  is  more  cu- 
rious, and  shows  the  absorbing  effect  which 
Lord  Byron's  position  in  society  had  upon  all 
classes,  is,  that  one  of  the  few  remarks  which 
his  visitor  has  recorded,  and  which  he  looks 
upon  as  an  evidence  of  his  Lordship's  aristo- 
cracy, was  made  by  myself.  It  is  the  one  upon 
Cobbett. 

"  From  the  cause  of  the  Spaniards,"  says  the 
writer,  (whom,  by  the  way,  I  had  introduced  to 
Lord  B.,)  "the  conversation  directed  itself  to 
the  cause  of  the  Greeks,  and  the  state  paper  of 
the  Holy  Alliance  upon  this  subject  also  was 
brought  upon  the  carpet.  Cobbett's  name  was 
introduced,  and  the  aristocratic  poet's  obser- 
vation was  too  striking  to  be  forgotten.  *  I 
should  not  like  to  see  Cobbett  presiding  at  a 
revolutionary  green-table,  and  to  be  examined 
by  him  ;  for,  if  he  were  to  put  ten  questions 
to  me,  and  I  should  answer  nine  questions 
satisfactorily,  but  were  to  fail  in  the  tenth — 
for  that  he  would  send  me  to  the  lantern? 


I,OE1)    BYRON.  237 

The  following  passage  is  added  here,  both 
because  it  touches  upon  a  point  which  has 
excited  attention,  and  because  it  refers  to  a 
body  of  men  who  have  given  rise  to  less  of 
the  odium  theologicum  than  any  other  priest- 
hood on  record. 

"  Lord  Byron  then  turned  to  me,  and  asked, 
*  are  you  not  afraid  of  calling  upon  such  an  ex- 
communicated heretic  as  myself?  If  you  are 
an  ambitious  man,  you  will  never  get  on  in  the 
Church  after  this.'  I  replied  that  he  was  to- 
tally mistaken,  if  he  fancied  there  was  any  such 
jealous  or  illiberal  spirit  at  home ;  and  he  in- 
stantly interrupted  me,  by  saying,  *  Yes,  yes, 
you  are  right — there  is  a  great  deal  of  liberal 
sentiment  among  Churchmen  in  England,  and 
that  is  why  I  prefer  the  Established  Church  of 
England  to  any  other  in  the  world.  I  have 
been  intimate,  in  my  time,  with  several  clergy- 
men, and  never  considered  our  difference  of 
opinion  was  any  bar  to  our  intimacy.  They 
say  I  am  no  Christian,  but  I  am  a  Christian.' 

I  afterwards  asked  Mr. what  his  Lordship 

meant  by  an  assertion  so  much  in  contradiction 


238  LORD    BYRON. 

with  his  writings,  and  I  was  told  that  he  often 
threw  out  random  declarations  of  this  kind, 
without  any  meaning." 

The  Mr. here  omitted  in  the  magazine, 

is  myself.  How  much  ought  I  not  to  have 
been  elevated  and  surprised,  when  I  found, 
by  the  pages  of  my  friend  of  the  "  Life  and 
Times,"  that  besides  being  myself,  I  was  also 
"  Colonel  Burr,  formerly  Vice-President  of  the 
United  States,"  and  that  I  had  "  unfortunately 
killed  General  Hamilton  in  a  duel  many  years 
ago !"  What  an  elegant  load  on  my  conscience 
is  here !  My  friend  also,  who  was  with  me, 
besides  being  the  Rev.  Mr.  G ,  as  legiti- 
mate a  son  in  every  sense  of  the  wprd  as  can 
be  found,  was,  it  seems,  the  Reverend  Mr.  J. 
or  "  Johnson ;  a  natural  son  of  Lord  Hamp- 
den  !"  There  is  no  knowing  how  many  people 
one  is  to  be,  before  one  dies.  I  have  been,  in 
my  time,  almost  all  the  Hunts  that  have  been 
talked  of;  besides  being,  at  the  same  instant, 
a  tall  man  and  a  short,  a  man  with  black  hair 
and  a  man  with  white,  a  fop  and  a  sloven,  a 
gentleman  and  no  gentleman,  a  sayer  of  things 


LORD    UYRON.  239 

I  never  said,  and  a  doer  of  deeds  never  done ; 
and  now,  in  1822,  it  appears  I  was  a  civil  per- 
son and  a  colonel,  and  that  I  went  to  see  Lord 
Byron  with  a  legitimate  natural  son  of  the 
Rev.  Mr.  G.  and  my  Lord  Hampden ! 

The  letter  written  by  this  twofold  clergy- 
man (who  should  have  taken  the  opportunity 
of  enriching  our  language  with  the  dual  num- 
ber) is,  our  compiler  informs  us,  "  in  many 
points  very  correct,"  but  "  requires  explanation 
where  he  alludes  to  subjects  of  which  he  is 
ignorant  only  from  hearsay."  Accordingly, 
he  tells  us,  that  the  palace  in  which  Lord 
Byron  lived  on  the  hill  of  Albaro,  was  once 
the  abode  of  the  celebrated  Andrew  Doria, 
Doge  of  Genoa :  Lord  Byron,  as  he  observes,  a 
few  pages  farther,  having  "  a  strong  partiality 
for  fixing  his  abode  in  ancient  chateaus  of  ro- 
mantic celebrity." 

That  is  to  say,  Doria's  residence  in  the  pa- 
lace is  made  for  the  occasion.  If  Lord  Byron 
lived  in  a  palace  at  Genoa,  it  must,  or  ought, 
or  he  wished  it  to  have  been,  Doria's :  there- 
fore it  was  Doria's ;  which  it  unfortunately  was 


240  LORD    BYRON. 

not.  It  was  the  Saluzzi  palace,  as  I  have  men- 
tioned before ;  and  was  celebrated  for  nothing 
but  for  his  Lordship's  living  in  it. 

At  p.  51  of  the  same  volume,  is  a  romantic 
account  of  a  little  groom  and  his  Lordship, 
riding  about  Genoa  in  fantastic  dresses.  It  is 
worth  quoting,  inasmuch  as  it  shows  the  vulgar 
melodramatic  idea  entertained  of  Lord  Byron* 
"  This  youth,"  we  are  told,  "  was  dressed  in  a 
livery,  not  unlike  the  Robin  Hood  archers  :  a 
green  coat,  and  hat  flopped  down  on  the  right 
shoulder,  the  rim  on  the  left  being  fastened  up 
to  the  crown  by  a  buckle  and  black  feather. 
When  they  rode  out  into  the  country  he  had  a 
pouch  and  powder-horn  by  his  side,  and  a  carr 
bine  slung  at  his  back.  His  Lordship  wore  his 
usual  travelling  dress,  which  we  have  had  occa- 
sion before  to  notice,  of  brown  waistcoat  and 
trowsers,  with  large  silver  buttons,  buff-colour- 
ed boots,  white  hat,  morocco  belt  and  daggers, 
and  a  loose  flowing  green  robe,  studded  by 
a  small  silver  star  in  front.  The  pair  were 
unique  at  Genoa,  and  created  some  surprise, 
which  made  Lord  Byron,  when  he  sallied  forth, 
proceed  at  full  gallop  through  the  city ;  and  to 


LORD    BYRON.  241 

avoid,  on  the  high-road,  a  religious  cavalcade, 
of  which  there  were  many  every  day,  he  would 
clap  spurs  to  his  horse,  and  leaping  the  first  fence 
near,  ride  over  the  fields  and  through  the  vine- 
yards, till  he  had  cut  them,  and  then  he  re- 
turned to  the  high-road  again.  He  had  several 
times  to  pay  for  these  trespasses,  and  always 
submitted  to  it  with  good-humour." 

Brown  and  silver,  buff-coloured  boots,  a 
green  cloak,  and  a  star !  And  this  was  his 
"  usual  travelling  dress  ;"  and  then,  in  order  to 
avoid  being  stared  at,  which  could  have  been 
his  only  object  in  wearing  it,  he  would  leap 
his  horse  over  the  fences,  and  ride  over  the 
fields  and  vineyards!  If  he  had,  he  would  have 
got  knocked  on  the  head.  It  is  unnecessary 
to  tell  anybody,  except  Mr.  Southey  and  the 
little  boys  who  go  to  the  Circus,  that  Lord 
Byron  performed  no  such  feats,  and  wore  no 
such  dress.  Farthermore,  he  had  no  servants 
at  Genoa  but  his  old  ones,  and  there  are  no 
fences  there — there  are  only  walls. 

The  falsehoods  now  thicken  so,  that  to  con- 
tradict them  would  be  to  contradict  almost 
every  page  in  the  book.  This  is  the  case,  at 

VOL.  I.  R 


242  LORD    BYRON. 

least,  to  my  knowledge,  in  every  thing  in 
which  Italy  is  concerned;  and  the  conclusion, 
respecting  what  is  said  of  Greece,  is  a  natural 
consequence.  The  fetes  at  Genoa,  the  walk- 
ing arm-in-arm  with  mysterious  old  gentle- 
men, the  walking  at  all,  the  charities  to  pub- 
lic hospitals,  the  frequentations  of  ships  of  war, 
with  a  thousand  etceteras,  all  are  false.  To  re- 
fute them,  for  refutation  sake,  would  be  a  ludi- 
crous waste  of  time.  My  object  is  to  take 
notice  of  such  passages  only,  as  suggest  some- 
thing either  of  contradiction  or  recollection, 
capable  of  adding  to  Lord  Byron's  real  history : 
I  shall,  therefore,  take  leave  of  the  Tempora 
and  Mores  of  our  friend  of  the  "  Life  and 
Times,"  by  extracting,  first,  a  summary  of 
the  noble  Bard's  character  in  his  highest,  most 
satisfied,  and  most  convincing  style;  and  se- 
condly, a  character  of  the  biography  itself, 
worthy  of  all  the  rest,  and  self-evident  to  a 
degree  of  the  dazzling.  It  is  only  a  pity,  that, 
in  addition  to  the  list  of  Lord  Byron's  accom- 
plishments, he  did  not  mention,  that  besides 
being  "  a  scholar,"  and  "  a  rock,"  and  "  a  reed 
shaken  by  the  wind,"  he  was  a  rat-catcher  and 


LORD    BYRON.  243 

the  Pope's  grandson ;  and  that,  in  recording 
the  truth  of  his  biography,  he  did  not  subjoin 
the  certificate  from  the  Lord  Mayor  usual  on 
such  occasions. 

"  The  life  of  a  scholar,"  says  our  author, 
quoting  Dr.  Johnson,  "  abounds  not  with  ad- 
venture ;"  in  this  he  spoke  from  his  own  expe- 
rience, and,  during  his  day,  men  of  learning 
were  not  to  be  found ;  or,  indeed,  looked  for, 
amongst  the  great  and  titled.  The  life  of  Lord 
Byron  comprises  a  little  of  every  thing;  he 
was  at  once  a  nobleman.,  (a  sufficient  passport  to 
fame,  without  even  ability  or  genius  to  recom- 
mend any  one  to  notice) — he  was  an  accom- 
plished gentleman,  quite  enough  to  make  all  he 
said  acceptable  in  genteel  society — he  was  an 
admirer  of  the  fair  sex,  a  virtue  (I  must  call  it 
so)  that,  at  all  events,  ensured  him  the  smiles 
of '  those  for  whom  poets,  painters,  and  heroes 
live,  labour,  and  die; — he  was  a  profound 
scholar;  that  ensured  him  the  estimation  of 
all  men  of  genius, — he  was  a  man  of  dramatic 
ability ;  this  ensured  him  celebrity  amongst 
buskined  enthusiasts — he  was  a  moral  man; 
that  ought  to  have  commanded  the  praise  of 

R  2 


244  LORD    BYRON. 

religious  minds — he  was  a  bard,  unequalled 
since  the  days  of  Shakspeare,  and  this  made 
every  British  heart-pulse  throb  with  pride  at 
his  name — he  was  a  lover  of  constitutional  li- 
berty ;  as  such  he  was  reverenced  by  men  of 
liberal  principles — he  was  a  traveller,  a  wan- 
derer, an  exile,  a  man  of  blighted  hopes  and 
blasted  fortunes :  at  times,  a  reed  shaken  by 
the  wind,  or  a  rock  of  adamant,  according  as 
noble  pride  or  tender  passion  moved  him — his 
variety  of  character,  the  rapid  successions  of 
lights  and  shades  that  obscured  and  illumined 
all  his  actions,  fixed  the  attention  of  mankind ; 
and  whilst  the  blaze  of  his  genius  seemed  to 
raise  him  in  our  estimation  to  Heaven,  his 
errors  reduced  him  to  a  level  with  earthly 
beings;  and  we  feel  a  consolatory  exultation 
in  thinking  that  he  was  one  of  us,  though  so 
preeminent  in  talents,  that  we  may  say, 

*'  He  was  a  man.  take  him  for  all  in  all, 
We  ne'er  shall  look  upon  his  like  again.' 

"  These  observations  are  here  introduced, 
merely  because  they  occur  at  the  moment, 
from  a  contemplation  of  particular  circum- 


LOED    BYRON.  245 

stances  in  which  Lord  Byron  was  engaged. 
As  an  excuse  for  want  of  connexion  in  events, 
we  have  two  precedents ;  one  legal  and  strong, 
the  other  light  and  amusing,  viz.  Montesquieu 
and  Boswell  :  the  former  made  his  Spirit  of 
the  Laws  agreeable,  from  being  -pursued  in  no 
settled  form  ;  and  Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson  is 
admired,  because  it  is  *  a  thing  of  shreds  and 
patches,'  where  something  must  suit  every 
one's  taste ;  but,  in  point  of  fact,  Byron's  life 
was 

'  Ever  charming,  ever  new ; 
When  will  the  landscape  tire  the  view !' 

And  be  it  remembered  by  the  reader,  that 
the  biographer  has  nought  in  view  but  plain 
truth." 

In  reading  such  things  as  these,  and  think- 
ing that  they  sell,  one  almost  ceases  to  look 
upon  the  pathetic  epithet  bestowed  on  the 
public  in  the  Rejected  Addresses,  as  a  touch 
of  humour.  The  existing  British  community, 
after  all,  are  really  and  truly  a  "  pensive  pub- 
lic," mightily  given  to  a  maudlin  credulity  and 
the  most  villanous  compounds.  See  how  me- 


246  LORD    BYRON. 

lancholy  it  walks  out  on  Sundays !  What  a 
solemn  roar  there  is  in  its  laughter  in  the 
theatre, — grave  and  unsocial  all  the  rest  of  the 
time,  and  letting  the  women  stand !  See  with 
what  avidity  it  entertains  a  prize-fight,  a  mad 
bull,  or  a  scandalous  magazine,  which  it  affects 
to  despise  all  the  while !  Any  thing  to  give 
it  a  sensation,  and  make  it  think  well  of  it- 
self, and  of  humoursome  people  like  it,  at  the 
expense  of  its  neighbours.  Aristophanes  would 
have  made  fine  work  of  it,  had  it  been  as  good- 
humoured  as  the  Athenian  public ;  but  your 
gens  tristes  are  apt  to  be  savage.  Every  other 
public,  Athenian  or  French,  is  to  be  laughed 
at  but  themselves.  Bring  home  the  joke 
against  the  English  to  their  own  doors,  high 
or  low ;  and,  instead  of  laughing,  they  send 
for  the  constable  or  the  Attorney- General. 
These  matters,  however,  are  mending ;  and  if 
Mr.  Canning's  politics  can  be  kept  up,  the 
popular  blood  has  a  chance  of  being  sweet- 
ened. John  Bull,  to  say  the  truth,  has  not 
been  a  very  pleasant  fellow,  ever  since  he  was 
John  Bull,  and  took  to  being  a  bad,  bolt-head- 
ed sort  of  Dutchman,  which  was  about  the 


LORD    BYRON.  247 

time  the  name  was  first  given  him.  It  is  high 
time  that  he  should  know  the  better  sort  of 
persons  of  all  countries  for  what  they  are, 
Dutch,  French,  or  Italian  ;  and  be  as  lively 
and  liberal,  as  he  tended  to  be  of  old,  and  as 
he  has  quite  enough  knowledge  to  make  him. 
Mr.  Southey,  in  a  fit  of  ungrateful  spleen,  (for 
John  has  listened  to  his  epics,)  degraded  him 
from  his  title  of  Bull,  into  one  which  he 
would  have  accused  me  of  indecency  for  men- 
tioning ;  though  of  the  two  I  surely  have  the 
greater  right,  and  that  which  is  indecent  in 
the  cold  and  gross  Laureat,  would  be  another 
thing  out  of  my  West-Indian  mouth.  But 
our  friend,  the  public,  if  he  knew  his  own 
powers,  and  would  do  himself  justice,  deserves 
neither  the  one  title  nor  the  other.  The  more 
he  listens  to  such  washy  antiques  as  Mr. 
Southey,  the  more  they  will  cheat  him  one 
minute,  and  insult  him  the  next.  They  want 
him  to  know  as  little,  to  say  as  little,  and  to 
share  as  little,  as  possible :  they,  in  the  mean 
while,  reading  him  to  sleep,  picking  his  pock- 
ets, and  laughing  at  his  person.  On  the  con- 
trary, let  him  learn  all  he  can,  compare  all  the 


248  LORD    BYRON. 

notes,  and  ask  all  the  questions  possible,  taking 
nothing  for  granted,  and  he  will  ultimately 
enjoy  all  he  ought,  which  is  more  than  the 
heroes  of  Mr.  Southey's  Book  of  the  Church 
desire  him  to  do,  (though  they  have  been  all 
mightily  bent  on  it  themselves,)  and  a  good 
deal  more.  Lord  Byron  has  been  too  much 
admired  by  the  public,  because  he  was  sulky 
and  wilful,  and  reflected  in  his  person  their 
own  love  of  dictation  and  excitement.  They 
owe  his  memory  a  greater  regard,  and  would 
do  it  much  greater  honour,  if  they  admired 
him  for  telling  them  they  were  not  so  perfect 
a  nation  as  they  supposed  themselves,  and  that 
they  might  take  as  well  as  give  lessons  of 
humanity,  by  a  candid  comparison  of  notes 
with  civilization  at  large. 


LETTERS  OF  LORD  BYRON 


TO 


MR.  LEIGH  HUNT. 


[AFTER  what  I  have  related  of  the  inter- 
course between  Lord  Byron  and  myself,  it 
will  not  be  supposed  that  these  letters  are 
published  with  any  other  view  than  that  of 
the  entertainment  to  be  derived  from  the  cor- 
respondence of  a  man  of  wit  and  celebrity. 
Had  I  wished  to  flatter  my  vanity,  or  make  a 
case  out  for  myself  in  any  way,  I  might  have 
published  them  long  ago.  I  confess  I  am 
not  unwilling  to  let  some  readers  see  how  ill- 
founded  were  certain  conjectures  of  theirs  at 
that  time.  In  other  respects,  I  fear,  the  let- 
ters are  not  calculated  to  do  me  good ;  for 


250  LORD    BYRON. 

they  exhibit  his  Lordship  in  a  pleasanter  light 
than  truth  has  obliged  me  to  paint  him,  and 
I  may  seem  to  be  ungrateful  for  many  kind 
expressions.  Let  the  result  be  what  it  ought 
to  be,  whether  for  me  or  against.  I  have  other 
letters  in  my  possession,  written  while  Lord 
Byron  was  in  Italy,  and  varying  in  degrees 
of  cordiality,  according  to  the  mood  he  hap- 
pened to  be  in.  They  are  for  the  most  part 
on  matters  of  dispute  between  us ;  and  are  all 
written  in  an  uneasy,  factitious  spirit,  as  dif- 
ferent from  the  straightforward  and  sincere- 
looking  style  of  the  present,  as  his  aspect  in 
old  times  varied  with  his  later  one.] 

LETTER  I. 

4,  Bennet-Street,  Dec.  2d,  1813. 
MY    DEAR    SIR, 

Few  things  could  be  more  welcome  than 
your  note ;  and  on  Saturday  morning  I  will 
avail  myself  of  your  permission  to  thank  you 
for  it  in  person.  My  time  has  not  been  passed, 
since  we  met,  either  profitably  or  agreeably, 
A  very  short  period  after  my  last  visit,  an 
incident  occurred,  with  which,  I  fear,  you  are 


LORD    BYRON.  251 

not  unacquainted,  as  report  in  many  mouths 
and  more  than  one  paper  was  busy  with  the 
topic.  That  naturally  gave  me  much  uneasi- 
ness. Then,  I  nearly  incurred  a  lawsuit  on  the 
sale  of  an  estate ;  but  that  is  now  arranged : 
next — but  why  should  I  go  on  with  a  series 
of  selfish  and  silly  details  ?  I  merely  wish  to 
assure  you  that  it  was  not  the  frivolous  forget- 
fulness  of  a  mind  occupied  by  what  is  called 
pleasure  (not  in  the  true  sense  of  Epicurus) 
that  kept  me  away ;  but  a  perception  of  my 
then  unfitness  to  share  the  society  of  those 
whom  I  value  and  wish  not  to  displease.  I 
hate  being  larmoyant,  and  making  a  serious 
face  among  those  who  are  cheerful. 

It  is  my  wish  that  our  acquaintance,  or,  if 
you  please  to  accept  it,  friendship,  may  be 
permanent.  I  have  been  lucky  enough  to  pre- 
serve some  friends  from  a  very  early  period, 
and  I  hope,  as  1  do  not  (at  least  now)  select 
them  lightly,  I  shall  not  lose  them  capriciously. 
I  have  a  thorough  esteem  for  that  indepen- 
dence of  spirit  which  you  have  maintained 
with  sterling  talent,  and  at  the  expense  of 
some  suffering.  You  have  not,  I  trust,  aban- 


LORD    BYRON. 

doned  the  poem  you  were  composing  when 
Moore  and  I  partook  of  your  hospitality  in  ye 
summer  ?  I  hope  a  time  will  come  when  he 
and  I  may  be  able  to  repay  you  in  kind  for 
the  latter ;— for  the  rhyme,  at  least  in  quantity ', 
you  are  in  arrear  to  both. 

Believe  me  very  truly 

and  affectionately  yours, 

BYRON. 


LETTER  II. 

Dec.  22,  1813. 
MY   DEAR    SIR, 

I  am  indeed  "  in  your  debt," — and,  what  is 
still  worse,  am  obliged  to  follow  royal  example, 
(he  has  just  apprized  his  creditors  that  they 
must  wait  till  ye  meeting,)  and  intreat  your 
indulgence  for,  I  hope,  a  very  short  time.  The 
nearest  relation  and  almost  ye  only  friend  I 
possess,  has  been  in  London  for  a  week,  and 
leaves  it  to-morrow  with  me  for  her  own  re- 
sidence.— I  return  immediately ;  but  we  meet 
so  seldom,  and  are  so  minuted  when  we  meet 
at  all,  that  I  give  up  all  engagements  till  now, 


LOUD    BYRON.  253 

without  reluctance.  On  my  return,  I  must 
see  you  to  console  myself  for  my  past  disap- 
pointments. I  should  feel  highly  honoured  in 
Mr.  B 's  permission  to  make  his  acquain- 
tance, and  there  you  are  in  my  debt — for  it  is  a 
promise  of  last  summer  which  I  still  hope  to 
see  performed.  Yesterday  I  had  a  letter  from 
Moore: — you  have  probably  heard  from  him 
lately ;  but  if  not,  you  will  be  glad  to  learn 
that  he  is  the  same  in  heart,  head,  and  health. 


LETTER  III. 

Feb.  9,  1814. 
MY  DEAR    SIR, 

I  have  been  snow-bound  and  thaw-swamped 
(two  compound  epithets  for  you)  in  the  "  val- 
ley of  the  shadow"  of  Newstead  Abbey  for  nearly 
a  month,  and  have  not  been  four  hours  returned 
to  London.  Nearly  the  first  use  I  make  of  my 
benumbed  fingers,  is  to  thank  you  for  your 
very  handsome  note  in  the  volume  you  have 
just  put  forth  ;  only,  I  trust,  to  be  followed  by 
others  on  subjects  more  worthy  your  notice 


254  LORD    BYRON. 

than  the  works  of  contemporaries.  Of  myself, 
you  speak  only  too  highly — and  you  must 
think  me  strangely  spoiled,  or  perversely 
peevish,  even  to  suspect  that  any  remarks  of 
yours,  in  the  spirit  of  candid  criticism,  could 
possibly  prove  unpalatable.  Had  they  been 
harsh,  instead  of  being  written  as  they  are  in 
the  indelible  ink  of  good  sense  and  friendly 
admiration — had  they  been  the  harshest — as  I 
knew  and  know  that  you  are  above  any  per- 
sonal bias,  at  least  against  your  fellow  bards — 
believe  me,  they  would  not  have  caused  a  word 
of  remonstrance  nor  a  moment  of  rankling  on 
my  part.  Your  poem*  I  redde\  long  ago  in  the 
"  Reflector,"  and  it  is  not  much  to  say  it  is  the 
best  "  session"  we  have — and  with  a  more 
difficult  subject — for  we  are  neither  so  good 
nor  so  bad  (taking  the  best  and  worst)  as  the 
wits  of  the  olden  time. 

To  your  smaller  pieces,  I  have  not  yet  had 
time  to  do  justice  by  perusal — and  I  have  a 
quantity  of  unanswered,  and,  I  hope,  unan- 
swerable letters  to  wade  through  before  I  sleep ; 

*  "  The  Feast  of  the  Poets."  f  Sic  in  MS. 


LORD    BYRON.  255 

but  to-morrow  will  see  me  through  your  vo- 
lume. I  am  glad  to  see  you  have  tracked 
Gray  among  the  Italians.  You  will  perhaps 
find  a  friend  or  two  of  yours  there  also,  though 
not  to  the  same  extent ;  but  I  have  always 
thought  the  Italians  the  only  poetical  moderns  : 
— our  Milton  and  Spenser,  and  Shakspeare, 
(the  last  through  translations  of  their  tales) 
are  very  Tuscan,  and  surely  it  is  far  superior 
to  the  French  school.  You  are  hardly  fair 
enough  to  Rogers — why  "  tea  ?"  You  might 
surely  have  given  him  supper — if  only  a  sand- 
wich. Murray  has,  I  hope,  sent  you  my  last 
bantling,  "  The  Corsair."  I  have  been  regaled 
at  every  inn  on  the  road  by  lampoons  and  other 
merry  conceits  on  myself  in  the  ministerial  ga- 
zettes, occasioned  by  the  republication  of  two 
stanzas  inserted  in  1812,  in  Perry's  paper.* 
The  hysterics  of  the  Morning  Post  are  quite 
interesting  ;  and  I  hear  (but  have  not  seen)  of 
something  terrific  in  a  last  week's  Courier — all 
which  I  take  with  "  the  calm  indifference"  of 
Sir  Fretful  Plagiary.  The  Morning  Post  has 

*  Morning  Chronicle. 


256  LOUD   BYHON. 

one  copy  of  devices  upon  my  deformity,  which 
certainly  will  admit  of  no  "  historic  doubts," 
like  "  Dickon  my  master's" — another  upon  my 
Atheism,  which  is  not  quite  so  clear — and 
another,  very  downrightly,  says  I  am  the  devil, 
(boiteux  they  might  have  added,)  and  a  rebel 
and  what  not : — possibly  my  accuser  of  dia- 
bolism may  be  Rosa  Matilda ;  and  if  so,  it 
would  not  be  difficult  to  convince  her  I  am  a 
mere  man.  I  shall  break  in  upon  you  in  a  day 
or  two — distance  has  hitherto  detained  me; 
and  I  hope  to  find  you  well  and  myself  wel- 
come. 

Ever  your  obliged  and  sincere, 

BYRON. 

P.  S.  Since  this  letter  was  written,  I  have 
been  at  your  text,  which  has  much  good  hu- 
mour in  every  sense  of  the  word.  Your  notes 
are  of  a  very  high  order  indeed,  particularly  on 
Wordsworth. 


LORD    BYRON.  257 

LETTER  IV. 

October  15th,  1814. 
MY  DEAR  HUNT, 

I  send  you  some  game,  of  which  I  beg  your 
acceptance.  I  specify  the  quantity  as  a  secu- 
rity against  the  porter  ;  a  hare,  a  pheasant,  and 
two  brace  of  partridges,  which,  I  hope,  are 
fresh.  My  stay  in  town  has  not  been  long, 
and  I  am  in  all  the  agonies  of  quitting  it 
again  next  week  on  business,  preparatory  to 
"  a  change  of  condition,"  as  it  is  called  by  the 
talkers  on  such  matters.  I  am  about  to  be 
married :  and  am,  of  course,  in  all  the  misery 
of  a  man  in  pursuit  of  happiness.  My  intend- 
ed is  two  hundred  miles  off;  and  the  efforts 
I  am  making  with  lawyers,  &cc.  &c.  to  join  my 
future  connexions,  are,  for  a  personage  of  my 
single  and  inveterate  habits, — to  say  nothing 
of  indolence, — quite  prodigious !  I  sincerely 
hope  you  are  better  than  your  paper  intimated 
lately;  and  that  your  approaching  freedom  will 
find  you  in  full  health  to  enjoy  it. 
Yours,  ever, 

BYRON. 

VOL.  i.  s 


258  LORD  BYRON. 

LETTER  V. 

13,  Piccadilly  Terrace, 

May — June  1st,  1815. 
MY  DEAR,  HUNT, 

I  am  as  glad  to  hear  from  as  I  shall  be  to  see 
you.  We  came  to  town,  what  is  called  late  in 
the  season ;  and  since  that  time,  the  death  of 
Lady  Byron's  uncle  (in  the  first  place),  and  her 
own  delicate  state  of  health,  have  prevented 
either  of  us  from  going  out  much  ;  however, 
she  is  now  better,  and  in  a  fair  way  of  going 
creditably  through  the  whole  process  of  begin- 
ning a  family. 

I  have  the  alternate  weeks  of  a  private  box 
at  Drury  Lane  Theatre  :  this  is  my  week,  and 
I  send  you  an  admission  to  it  for  Kean's  nights, 
Friday  and  Saturday  next,  in  case  you  should 
like  to  see  him  quietly: — it  is  close  to  the 
stage — the  entrance  by  the  private  box-door — 
and  you  can  go  without  the  bore  of  crowding, 
jostling,  or  dressing.  1  also  inclose  you  a  par- 
cel of  recent  letters  from  Paris ;  perhaps  you 
may  find  some  extracts  that  may  amuse  your- 
self or  your  readers.  I  have  only  to  beg  you 
will  prevent  your  copyist,  or  printer,  from 


LORD    BYRON.  259 

mixing  up  any  of  the  English  names,  or  pri- 
vate matter  contained  therein,  which  might 
lead  to  a  discovery  of  the  writer ;  and,  as  the 
Examiner  is  sure  to  travel  back  to  Paris,  might 
get  him  into  a  scrape,  to  say  nothing  of  his 
correspondent  at  home.  At  any  rate,  I  hope 
and  think  the  perusal  will  amuse  you.  When- 
ever you  come  this  way,  I  shall  be  happy  to 
make  you  acquainted  with  Lady  Byron,  whom 
you  will  find  any  thing  but  a  fine  lady — a 
species  of  animal  which  you  probably  do  not 
affect  more  than  myself.  Thanks  for  yc  Mask ; 
— there  is  not  only  poetry  and  thought  in  the 
body,  but  much  research  and  good  old  reading 
in  your  prefatory  matter.  I  hope  you  have 
not  given  up  your  narrative  poem,  of  which  I 
heard  you  speak  as  in  progress.  It  rejoices  me 
to  hear  of  the  well-doing  and  regeneration  of 
the  "  Feast,"  setting  aside  my  own  selfish  rea- 
sons for  wishing  it  success.  I  fear  you  stand 
almost  single  in  your  liking  of  "  Lara :"  it  is 
natural  that  /  should,  as  being  my  last  and 
most  unpopular  effervescence  : — passing  by  its 
other  sins,  it  is  too  little  narrative,  and  too 
metaphysical  to  please  the  greater  number  of 

s  2 


260  LORD    BYRON. 

readers.  I  'have,  however,  much  consolation 
in  the  exception  with  which  you  furnish  me. 
From  Moore  I  have  not  heard  very  lately.  I 
fear  he  is  a  little  humorous,  because  I  am  a 
lazy  correspondent ;  but  that  shall  be  mended. 
Ever  your  obliged, 

And  very  sincere  friend, 

BYRON. 

P.  S.  "  Politics !"  The  barking  of  the  war- 
dogs  for  their  carrion  has  sickened  me  of  them 
for  the  present. 


LETTER  VI. 

13,  Terrace,  Piccadilly,  Oct.  7th,  1815. 
MY    DEAR    HUNT, 

I  had  written  a  long  answer  to  your  last, 
which  I  put  into  the  fire ;  partly,  because  it 
was  a  repetition  of  what  I  have  already  said — 
and  next,  because  I  considered  what  my  opi- 
nions are  worth,  before  I  made  you  pay  double 
postage,  as  your  proximity  lays  you  within 
the  jaws  of  the  tremendous  "  Twopenny,"  and 
beyond  the  verge  of  franking — the  only  par- 


LORD    BYRON.  261 

liamentary  privilege  (saving  one  other)  of  much 
avail  in  these  "  costermonger  days." 

Pray  don't  make  me  an  exception  to  the 
"  Long  live  King  Richard"  of  your  bards  in 
"  the  Feast."  I  do  allow  him  to  be  "prince  of  the 
bards  of  his  time/'  upon  the  judgment  of  those 
who  must  judge  more  impartially  than  I  pro- 
bably do.  I  acknowledge  him  as  I  acknow- 
ledge the  Houses  of  Hanover  and  Bourbon — 
the— not  the  «'  one-ey'd  monarch  of  the  blind," 
but  the  blind  monarch  of  the  one-eyed.  I 
merely  take  the  liberty  of  a  free  subject  to 
vituperate  certain  of  his  edicts — and  that  only 
in  private. 

I  shall  be  very  glad  to  see  you,  or  your  re- 
maining canto ;  if  both  together,  so  much  the 
better. 

I  am  interrupted 


LETTER  VII. 

Oct.  15th,  1815. 
DEAR    HUNT, 

I  send  you  a  thing  whose  greatest  value  is 
its  present  rarity  ;*  the  present  copy  contains 

*  A  copy  of  "  English  Bards  and  Scotch  Reviewers. 


262  LORD    BYRON. 

some  manuscript  corrections  previous  to  an 
Edition  which  was  printed,  but  not  published ; 
and,  in  short,  all  that  is  in  the  suppressed 
Edition,  the  fifth,  except  twenty  lines  in  ad- 
dition, for  which  there  was  not  room  in  the 
copy  before  me.  There  are  in  it  many  opi- 
nions I  have  altered,  and  some  which  I  retain ; 
upon  the  whole,  I  wish  that  it  had  never  been 
written,  though  my  sending  you  this  copy  (the 
only  one  in  my  possession,  unless  one  of  Lady 
B.'s  be  excepted)  may  seem  at  variance  with 
this  statement : — but  my  reason  for  this  is  very 
different:  it  is,  however,  the  only  gift  I. have 
made  of  the  kind  this  many  a  day.* 

P.  S.  You  probably  know  that  it  is  not  in 
print  for  sale,  nor  ever  will  be  (if  I  can  help  it) 
again. 

*  The  absence  of  the  signature  to  this  letter,  as  to  others, 
is  owing  to  my  having  given  it  away.  Letters  have  been 
given  away  also,  or  I  should  have  had  more  for  the  reader's 
amusement. 


LORD    BYRON.  263 


LETTER  VIII. 

Oct.  22,  1815. 
MY    DEAR    HUNT, 

You  have  excelled  yourself — if  not  all  your 
cotemporaries,  in  the  Canto*  which  I  have  just 
finished.  I  think  it  above  the  former  books ; 
but  that  is  as  it  should  be;  it  rises  with  the 
subject,  the  conception  appears  to  me  perfect, 
and  the  execution  perhaps  as  nearly  so  as  verse 
will  admit.  There  is  more  originality  than  I 
recollect  to  have  seen  elsewhere  within  the 
same  compass,  and  frequent  and  great  happi- 
ness of  expression.  In  short,  I  must  turn  to 
the  faults,  or  what  appear  such  to  me:  these 
are  not  many,  nor  such  as  may  not  be  easily 
altered,  being  almost  all  verbal; — and  of  the 
same  kind  as  I  pretended  to  point  out  in  the 
former  cantos,  viz.  occasional  quaintness  and 
obscurity,  and  a  kind  of  a  harsh  and  yet  col- 
loquial compounding  of  epithets,  as  if  to  avoid 
saying  common  things  in  the  common  way ; 
"  difficile  est  proprie'  communia  dicere,"  seems 

*  One  of  the  Cantos  of  the  story  of  "  Rimini ;"  I  believe, 
the  third. 


264-  1,0111)    BYRON. 

at  times  to  have  met  with  in  you  a  literal 
translator.  I  have  made  a  few,  and  but  a  few, 
pencil  marks  on  the  MS.  which  you  can  fol- 
low or  not,  as  you  please. 

The  poem,  as  a  whole,  will  give  you  a  very 
high   station ;    but  where   is   the   conclusion  ? 
Don't  let  it  cool  in  the  composition  !     You 
can  always  delay  as  long  as  you  like  revising, 
though  I  am  not  sure,  in  the  very   face  of 
Horace,   that  the  "  nonum,"  &c.  is   attended 
with  advantage,  unless  we  read  "  months''  for 
"  years."     I  am  glad  the  book  sent*  reached 
you.     I  forgot  to  tell  you  the  story  of  its  sup- 
pression, which  shan't  be   longer  than   I  can 
make  it.     My  motive  for  writing  that  poem 
was,  I  fear,  not  so  fair  as  you  are  willing  to 
believe  it ;  I  was  angry,  and  determined  to  be 
witty,  and,  fighting  in  a  crowd,  dealt  about 
my  blows  against  all  alike,  without  distinction 
or   discernment.     When    I   came   home  from 
the  East,  among  other  new  acquaintances  and 
friends,  politics  and  the  state  of  the  Notting- 
ham rioters, — (of  which  county  I  am  a  land- 

*  "  English  Bards/'  &c. 


LOUD    BYllOX.  265 

holder,  and  Lord  Holland  Recorder  of  the 
town,)  led  me  by  the  good  offices  of  Mr.  Ro- 
gers into  the  society  of  Lord  Holland,  who 
with  Lady  Holland  was  particularly  kind  to 
me  :  about  March,  1812,  this  introduction  took 
place,  when  I  made  my  first  speech  on  the 
Frame  Bill,  in  the  same  debate  in  which  Lord 
Holland  spoke.  Soon  after  this,  I  was  correct- 
ing the  fifth  edition  of  "  E.  B."  for  the  press, 
when  Rogers  represented  to  me  that  he  knew 
Lord  and  Lady  Holland  would  not  be  sorry 
if  I  suppressed  any  farther  publication  of  that 
poem  ;  and  I  immediately  acquiesced,  and  with 
great  pleasure,  for  I  had  attacked  them  upon 
a  fancied  and  false  provocation,  with  many 
others ;  and  neither  was,  nor  am  sorry,  to  have 
done  what  I  could  to  stifle  that  ferocious  rhap- 
sody. This  was  subsequent  to  my  acquaint- 
ance with  Lord  Holland,  and  was  neither  ex- 
pressed nor  understood,  as  a  condition  of  that 
acquaintance.  Rogers  told  me,  he  thought  I 
ought  to  suppress  it ;  I  thought  so  too,  and 
did  it  as  far  as  I  could,  and  that 's  all.  I  sent 
you  my  copy,  because  I  consider  your  having 
it  much  the  same  as  having  it  myself.  Lady 


266  LORD    BYRON. 

Byron  has  one ;  I  desire  not  to  have  any  other ; 
and  sent  it  only  as  a  curiosity  and  a  memento. 


LETTER  IX. 

13,  Terrace,  Piccadilly,  Sept.— Oct.*  30th,  1815. 
'     MY  DEAR  HUNT, 

Many  thanks  for  your  books,  of  which  you 
already  know  my  opinion.  Their  external 
splendour  should  not  disturb  you  as  inappro- 
priate— they  have  still  more  within  than  with- 
out. 

I  take  leave  to  differ  from  you  on  Words- 
worth, as  freely  as  I  once  agreed  with  you  ; 
at  that  time  I  gave  him  credit  for  a  promise, 
which  is  unfulfilled.  I  still  think  his  capacity 
warrants  all  you  say  of  it  only — but  that  his 
performances  since  "  Lyrical  Ballads,"  are  mi- 
serably inadequate  to  the  ability  which  lurks 
within  him  :  there  is  undoubtedly  much  natu- 
ral talent  spilt  over  "  The  Excursion  ;"  but  it 
is  rain  upon  rocks — where  it  stands  and  stag- 
nates, or  rain  upon  sands — where  it  falls  with- 

*  Sic  in  MS. 


LORD    BYRON.  267 

out  fertilizing.  Who  can  understand  him  ? 
Let  those  who  do,  make  him  intelligible.  Ja- 
cob Behmen,  Swedenborg,  and  Joanna  South- 
cote,  are  mere  types  of  this  arch-apostle  of  mys- 
tery and  mysticism;  but  I  have  done — no,  I 
have  not  done,  for  I  have  too  petty,  and  per- 
haps unworthy  objections  in  small  matters  to 
make  to  him,  which,  with  his  pretensions  to 
accurate  observation,  and  fury  against  Pope's 
false  translation  of  the  "  Moonlight  scene  in 
Homer,"  I  wonder  he  should  have  fallen 
into  : — these  be  they : — He  says  of  Greece  in 
the  body  of  his  book — that  it  is  a  land  of 

"  Rivers,  fertile  plains,  and  sounding  shores, 
Under  a  cope  of  variegated  sky." 

The  rivers  are  dry  half  the  year,  the  plains  are 
barren,  and  the  shores  still  and  tideless  as  the 
Mediterranean  can  make  them ;  the  sky  is 
any  think  but  variegated,  being  for  months 
and  months  but  "darkly,  deeply,  beautifully 
blue." — The  next  is  in  his  notes,  where  he 
talks  of  our  "  Monuments  crowded  together 
in  the  busy,  &c.  of  a  large  town,"  as  compared 
with  the  "  still  seclusion  of  a  Turkish  cemetery 


268  LORD    BYRON. 

in  some  remote  place."  This  is  pure  stuff:  for 
one  monument  in  our  church-yards  there  are 
ten  in  the  Turkish,  and  so  crowded,  that  you 
cannot  walk  between  them;  they  are  always 
close  to  the  walls  of  the  towns,  that  is,  merely 
divided  by  a  path  or  road;  and  as  to  "  remote 
places,"  men  never  take  the  trouble,  in  a  bar- 
barous country,  to  carry  their  dead  very  far; 
they  must  have  lived  near  to  where  they  are 
buried.  There  are  no  cemeteries  in  "  remote 
places,"  except  such  as  have  the  cypress  and 
the  tombstone  still  left,  where  the  olive  and 

the  habitation  of  the  living  have  perished 

These  things  I  was  struck  with,  as  coming  pe- 
culiarly in  my  own  way  ;  and  in  both  of  these 
he  is  wrong;  yet  I  should  have  noticed  neither 
but  for  his  attack  on  Pope  for  a  like  blunder, 
and  a  peevish  affectation  about  him,  of  despis- 
ing a  popularity  which  he  will  never  obtain. 
I  write  in  great  haste,  and,  I  doubt,  not  much 
to  the  purpose  ;  but  you  have  it  hot  and  hot, 
just  as  it  comes,  and  so  let  it  go. 

By  the  way,  both  he  and  you  go  too  far 
against  Pope's  "  So  when  the  moon,"  &c. :  it 
is  no  translation,  I  know ;  but  it  is  not  such 


LORD    BYRON.  269 

false  description  as  asserted.     I  have  read  it  on 
the  spot :  there  is  a  burst,  and  a  lightness,  and 
a  glow  about  the  night  in  the  Troad,  which 
makes  the  "  planets  vivid,"  and  the  "  pole  glar- 
ing :''  the  moon  is — at  least  the  sky  is  clearness 
itself;  and  I  know  no  more  appropriate  ex- 
pression for  the  expansion  of  such  a  heaven — 
o'er  the  scene — the  plain — the  sea — the  sky — 
Ida  —  the  Hellespont — Simois — Scamander — 
and  the  Isles, — than  that  of  a  "  flood  of  glory." 
I  am  getting  horribly  lengthy,  and  must  stop : 
to  the  whole  of  your  letter  I  say  "  ditto  to  Mr. 
Burke,"  as  the  Bristol  candidate  cried  by  way 
of  electioneering   harangue.      You   need   not 
speak  of  morbid  feelings  and  vexations  to  me  ; 
I  have  plenty ;    for  I  must  blame  partly  the 
times,  and  chiefly  myself:   but  let  us  forget 
them.     /  shall  be  very  apt  to  do  so  when  I  see 
you  next.     Will  you  come  to  the  Theatre  and 
see  our  new  management?    You  shall  cut  it 
up  to  your  heart's  content,  root   and   branch, 
afterwards,  if  you  like ;    but  come  and  see  it ! 
If  not,  I  must  come  and  see  you. 
Ever  yours, 
Very  truly  and  affectionately, 

BYRON. 


270 


LORD    BYRON. 


P.  S.  Not  a  word  from  Moore  for  these  two 
months.  Pray  let  me  have  the  rest  of  Rimini. 
You  have  two  excellent  points  in  that  poem — 
originality  and  Italianism.  I  will  back  you  as 
a  bard  against  half  the  fellows  on  whom  you 
have  thrown  away  much  good  criticism  and 
eulogy:  but  don't  let  your  bookseller  publish 
in  quarto ;  it  is  the  worst  size  possible  for  cir- 
culation. I  say  this  on  bibliopolical  authority. 
Again,  yours  ever, 

B. 


LETTER  X. 

January  29th,  1816. 
DEAR    HUNT, 

I  return  your  extract  with  thanks  for  the 
perusal,  and  hope  you  are  by  this  time  on  the 
verge  of  publication.  My  pencil-marks  on  the 
margin  of  your  former  MSS.  I  never  thought 
worth  the  trouble  of  decyphering,  but  I  had 
no  such  meaning  as  you  imagine  for  their  being 
withheld  from  Murray,  from  whom  I  differ 
entirely  as  to  the  terms  of  your  agreement; 
nor  do  I  think  you  asked  a  piastre  too  much 
for  the  poem.  However,  I  doubt  not  he  will 


LORD    BYROX.  271 

deal  fairly  by  you  on  the  whole  :  he  is  really  a 
very  good  fellow,  and  his  faults  are  merely  the 
leaven  of  his  "  trade" — "•  the  trade !"  the  slave- 
trade  of  many  an  unlucky  writer. 

The  said  Murray  and  I  are  just  at  present 
in  no  good  humour  with  each  other ;  but  he  is 
not  the  worse  for  that :  I  feel  sure  that  he  will 
give  your  work  as  fair  or  a  fairer  chance  in 
every  way  than  your  late  publishers ;  and 
what  he  cant  do  for  it,  it  will  do  for  itself. 

Continual  laziness  and  occasional  indisposi- 
tion have  been  the  causes  of  my  negligence  (for 
I  deny  neglect)  in  not  writing  to  you  immedi- 
ately. These  are  excuses :  I  wish  they  may 
be  more  satisfactory  to  you  than  they  are  to 
me.  I  opened  my  eyes  yesterday  morning  on 
your  compliment  of  Sunday.  If  you  knew 
what  a  hopeless  and  lethargic  den  of  dulness 
and  drawling  our  hospital  is  during  a  debate, 
and  what  a  mass  of  corruption  in  its  patients, 
you  would  wonder,  not  that  I  very  seldom 
speak,  but  that  I  ever  attempted  it,  feeling,  as 
I  trust  I  do,  independently.  However,  when 
a  proper  spirit  is  manifested  "  without  doors," 
I  will  endeavour  not  to  be  idle  within.  Do 


272  LORD    BYRON. 

you  think  such  a  time  is  coming?  Methinks 
there  are  gleams  of  it.  My  forefathers  were  of 
the  other  side  of  the  question  in  Charles's  days, 
and  the  fruit  of  it  was  a  title  and  the  loss  of  an 
enormous  property. 

If  the  old  struggle  comes  on,  I  may  lose  the 
one  and  shall  never  regain  the  other,  but  no 
matter ;  there  are  things,  even  in  this  world, 
better  than  either. 

Very  truly, 

Ever  yours, 

B. 


LETTER  XI. 

Feb.  26th,  1816. 
DEAR    HUNT, 

Your  letter  would  have  been  answered  be- 
fore, had  I  not  thought  it  probable  that,  as 
you  were  in  town  for  a  day  or  so,  I  should 
have  seen  you.  I  don't  mean  this  as  a  hint 
at  reproach  for  not  calling,  but  merely  that 
of  course  I  should  have  been  very  glad  if  you 
had  called  in  your  way  home  or  abroad,  as  I 
always  would  have  been,  and  always  shall  be. 
With  regard  to  the  circumstance  to  which 


LORD    BYRON. 

you  allude,  there  is  no  reason  why  you  should 
not  speak  openly  to  me  on  a  subject  already 
sufficiently  rife  in  the  mouths  and  minds  of 
what  is  called  "  the  World."— Of  the  "  fifty 
reports,"  it  follows  that  forty -nine  must  have 
more  or  less  error  and  exaggeration  ;  but  I 
am  sorry  to  say,  that  on  the  main  and  essen- 
tial point  of  an  intended,  and,  it  may  be,  an 
inevitable  separation,  I  can  contradict  none. 
At  present  I  shall  say  no  more — but  this  is 
not  from  want  of  confidence ;  in  the  mean- 
time, I  shall  merely  request  a  suspension  of 
opinion.  Your  prefatory  letter  to  "  Rimini," 
I  accepted  as  it  was  meant — as  a  public  com- 
pliment and  a  private  kindness.  I  am  only 
sorry  that  it  may  perhaps  operate  against  you 
as  an  inducement,  and,  with  some,  a  pretext, 
for  attack  on  the  part  of  the  political  and  per- 
sonal enemies  of  both : — not  that  this  can  be 
of  much  consequence,  for  in  the  end  the  work 
must  be  judged  by  its  merits,  and  in  that 
respect  you  are  well  armed.  Murray  tells 
me  it  is  going  on  well,  and,  you  may  depend 
upon  it,  there  is  a  substratum  of  poetry  which 
is  a  foundation  for  solid  and  durable  fame. 

VOL.  I.  T 


274  LORD    BYRON. 

The  objections  (if  there  be  objections,  for  this  is 
a  presumption,  and  not  an  assumption,)  will  be 
merely  as  to  the  mechanical  part,  and  such,  as  I 
stated  before,  the  usual  consequence  of  either  no- 
velty or  revival.  I  desired  Murray  to  forward 
to  you  a  pamphlet  with  two  things  of  mine  in 
it,  the  most  part  of  both  of  them,  and  of  one 
in  particular,  written  before  others  of  my  com- 
posing, which  have  preceded  them  in  publi- 
cation ;  they  are  neither  of  them  of  much  pre- 
tension, nor  intended  for  it.  You  will  per- 
haps wonder  at  my  dwelling  so  much  and  so 
frequently  on  former  subjects  and  scenes ;  but 
the  fact  is,  that  I  found  them  fading  fast  from 
my  memory ;  and  I  was,  at  the  same  time,  so 
partial  to  their  place,  (and  events  connected 
with  it,)  that  I  have  stamped  them,  while  I 
could,  in  such  colours  as  I  could  trust  to  now, 
but  might  have  confused  and  misapplied  here- 
after, had  I  longer  delayed  the  attempted  de- 
lineation. 


LORD    BYRON. 


LETTER  XII. 

March  14,  1816. 
DEAR    HUNT, 

I  send  you  six  orchestra  tickets  for  Drury 
Lane,  countersigned  by  me,  which  makes  the 
admission  free  —  which  I  explain,  that  the  door- 
keeper may  not  impose  upon  you  ;  they  are 
for  the  best  place  in  the  house,  but  can  only 
be  used  one  at  a  time.  I  have  left  the  dates 
unfilled,  and  you  can  take  your  own  nights, 
which  I  should  suppose  would  be  Kean's  :  the 
seat  is  in  the  orchestra.  I  have  inserted  the 
name  of  Mr.  H  -  ,  a  friend  of  yours,  in  case 
you  like  to  transfer  to  him  —  do  not  forget  to 
fill  up  the  dates  for  such  days  as  you  choose 
to  select. 

Yours,  ever  truly, 

BYRON. 


T  2 


276  LORD   BYRON. 

i 

FRAGMENTS  OF  LETTERS, 

The  rest  of  which  has  been  mutilated  or  lost. 


FRAGMENT  I. 

good  of  "  Rimini," — Sir  Henry  Engle- 

field,  a  mighty  man  in  the  blue  circles,  and  a 
very  clever  man  any  where,  sent  to  Murray,  in 
terms  of  the  highest  eulogy ;  and  with  regard 
to  the  common  reader  my  sister  and  cousin 
(who  are  now  all  my  family,  and  the  last  since 
gone  away  to  be  married)  were  in  fixed  perusal 
and  delight  with  it,  and  they  are  "  not  cri- 
tical," but  fair,  natural,  unaffected,  and  under- 
standing persons. 

Frere,  and  all  the  arch-literati,  I  hear,  are 
also  unanimous  in  a  high  opinion  of  the  poem. 
"  1  hear  this  by  the  way — but  I  will  send." 


FRAGMENT  II. 

With  regard  to  the  E.  B.  I  have  no  con- 
cealments, nor  desire  to  have  any,   from  you 


LORD    BYRON. 

or  yours :  the  suppression  occurred  (I  am  as 
sure  as  I  can  be  of  any  thing)  in  the  manner 
stated:  I  have  never  regretted  that,  but  very 
often  the  composition — that  is  the  humeur  of  a 
great  deal  in  it.  As  to  the  quotation  you  al- 
lude to,  I  have  no  right,  nor  indeed  desire,  to 
prevent  it ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  in  common 
with  all  other  writers,  I  do  and  ought  to  take 
it  as  a  compliment. 

The  paper  on  the  Methodists  was  sure  to 
raise  the  bristles  of  the  godly.  I  redde  it,  and 
agree  with  the  writer  on  one  point  in  which 
you  and  he  perhaps  differ ;  that  an  addiction 
to  poetry  is  very  generally  the  result  of  "  an 
uneasy  mind  in  an  uneasy  body  ;"  disease  or 
deformity  have  been  the  attendants  of  many 
of  our  best.  Collins  mad — Chatterton,  /  think, 
mad  —  Cowper  mad  —  Pope  crooked  —  Milton 
blind — Gray — (I  have  heard  that  the  last  was 
afflicted  by  an  incurable  and  very  grievous  dis- 
temper, though  not  generally  known)  and 

others .     I  have  somewhere  redde,  however, 

that  poets  rarely  go  mad.  I  suppose  the  writer 
means  that  their  insanity  effervesces  and  evapo- 
rates in  verse — may  be  so. 


278  LORD    BYRON. 

I  have  not  had  time  nor  paper  to  attack 
your  system,  which  ought  to  be  done,  were  it 
only  because  it  is  a  system.  So,  by  and  by, 
have  at  you. 

Yours  ever, 

BYRON. 


CONTEMPORARY   MEMOIRS. 


MR.  MOORE. 


I  THOUGHT  Thomas  Moore,  when  I  first 
knew  him,  as  delightful  a  person  as  one  could 
imagine.  He  could  not  help  being  an  inte- 
resting one ;  and  his  sort  of  talent  has  this 
advantage  in  it,  that  being  of  a  description  in- 
telligible to  all,  the  possessor  is  equally  sure 
of  present  and  future  fame.  I  never  received 
a  visit  from  him,  but  I  felt  as  if  I  had  been 
talking  with  Prior  or  Sir  Charles  Sedley.  His 
acquaintance  with  Lord  Byron  began  by  talk- 
ing of  a  duel.  With  me  it  commenced  in  as 
gallant  a  way,  though  of  a  different  sort.  I 
had  cut  up  an  opera  of  his,  (the  Blue  Stock- 


280  MR.  MOOItE. 

ing,)  as  unworthy  of  so  great  a  wit.     He  came 
to   see   me,  saying  I  was  very  much  in  the 
right ;    and  an  intercourse   took   place,  which 
I  might  have  enjoyed  to  this  day,  had  he  va- 
lued his  real  fame  as  much  as  I  did.     I  mean 
to  assume  nothing  in  saying  this,  either  as  a 
dispenser  of  reputation,  or  as  a  man  of  undis- 
puted reputation  myself.     I  live  too  much  out 
of  the  world,  and  differ  too  plainly  with  what 
is  in  it,  to  pretend  to  be  either  one  or  the  other. 
But  Mr.  Moore,  in  his  serious  as  well  as  gayer 
verses,  talked  a  great  deal  of  independence  and 
openness,  and  the  contempt  of  commonplaces ; 
and  on  this  account  he  owed  it  to  his  admi- 
rers not  to  disappoint  them.     He  was  bound 
to  them  the  more  especially,  when  they  put 
hearty  faith  in  him,  and  when  they  thought 
they  paid  him  a  compliment  in   being   inde- 
pendent themselves.     The  reader  has  seen  to 
what  I  allude.     At  the  time  I  am  speaking  of, 
my  acquaintance,  perhaps,  was  of  some  little 
service  to  Mr.  Moore ;  at  least,  he  thought  so. 
I  am  sure  I  never  valued  myself  on  any  ser- 
vice  which  a  very  hearty   admiration   of  his 
wit  and  independence  could  render  him.     It 


Mil.  MOORE.  281 

was  involuntary  on  my  part ;  I  could  not  have 
helped  it ;  and,  at  all  times,  the  advantage  of 
personal  intercourse  would  have  been  on  my 
side. 

Mr.  Moore  was  lively,  polite,  bustling,  full 
of  amenities  and  acquiescences,  into  which  he 
contrived   to   throw  a  sort  of  roughening  of 
cordiality,  like  the  crust  of  old  port.    It  seemed 
a  happiness  to  him  to  say  "  Yes."     There  was 
just  enough  of  the  Irishman  in  him  to  flavour 
his  speech  and  manner.     He  was  a  little  par- 
ticular, perhaps,  in  his  orthoepy,  but  not  more 
so  than  became  a  poet ;  and  he  appeared  to 
me  the  last  man  in  the  world  to  cut  his  coun- 
try, even  for  the  sake  of  high  life.     As  to  his 
person,  all  the  world  knows  that  he  is  as  little 
of  stature,  as  he  is  great  in  wit.     It  is  said, 
that  an  illustrious  personage,  in  a  fit  of  play- 
fulness, once  threatened  to  put  him  into  the 
wine-cooler ;    a  proposition,  which  Mr.  Moore 
took   to  be  more  royal  than  polite.     A   Spa- 
nish  gentleman,   whom    I   met   on   the   Con- 
tinent, and  who  knew  him  well,  said,  in  his 
energetic  English,  which  he   spoke  none   the 
worse    for    a    wrong    vowel    or   so :    "  Now, 


282  MK.  MOORE. 

there's  Mooerr,  Thomas  Mooerr  ;  I  look  upon 
Mooerr  as  an  active  little  men."  This  is  true. 
He  reminds  us  of  those  active  little  great 
men  who  abound  so  remarkably  in  Claren- 
don's history.  Like  them,  he  would  have 
made  an  excellent  practical  partisan,  and  it 
would  have  done  him  good.  Horseback,  and 
a  little  Irish  fighting,  would  have  seen  fair 
play  with  his  good  living,  and  kept  his  look  as 
juvenile  as  his  spirit.  His  forehead  is  bony 
and  full  of  character,  with  "  bumps"  of  wit, 
large  and  radiant,  enough  to  transport  a  phre- 
nologist. His  eyes  are  as  dark  and  fine,  as  you 
would  wish  to  see  under  a  set  of  vine-leaves ; 
his  mouth  generous  and  good-humoured,  with 
dimples ;  his  nose  sensual,  prominent,  and  at 
the  same  time  the  reverse  of  aquiline.  There 
is  a  very  peculiar  character  in  it,  as  if  it  were 
looking  forward,  and  scenting  a  feast  or  an  or- 
chard. The  face,  upon  the  whole,  is  Irish,  not 
unruffled  with  care  and  passion ;  but  festivity 
is  the  predominant  expression.  When  Mr. 
Moore  was  a  child,  he  is  said  to  have  been 
eminently  handsome,  a  cupid  for  a  picture; 
and  notwithstanding  the  tricks  which  both  joy 


Mil.  MOORE.  283 

and  sorrow  have  played  with  his  face,  you  can 
fancy  as  much.  It  was  a  recollection,  perhaps, 
to  this  effect,  that  induced  his  friend,  Mr.  At- 
kinson, to  say,  one  afternoon,  in  defending  him 
from  the  charge  of  libertinism,  "  Sir,  they  may 
talk  of  Moore  as  they  please ;  but  I  tell  you 
what ;  I  always  consider  him,"  (and  this  argu- 
ment he  thought  conclusive,)  "  I  always  consi- 
der my  friend,  Thomas  Moore,  as  an  infant 
sporting  on  the  bosom  of  Venus."  There  was 
no  contesting  this ;  and,  in  truth,  the  hearers 
were  very  little  disposed  to  contest  it,  Mr.  At- 
kinson having  hit  upon  a  defence  which  was 
more  logical  in  spirit  than  chronological  in  the 
image.  When  conscience  comes,  a  man's  im- 
pulses must  take  thought ;  but  till  then,  poe- 
try is  only  the  eloquent  and  irresistible  deve- 
lopement  of  the  individual's  nature ;  and  Mr. 
Moore's  wildest  verses  were  a  great  deal  more 
innocent  than  could  enter  into  the  imagina- 
tions of  the  old  libertines  who  thought  they 
had  a  right  to  use  them.  I  must  not,  in  this 
portrait,  leave  out  his  music.  He  plays  and 
sings  with  great  taste  on  the  piano-forte,  and 
is  known  as  a  graceful  composer.  His  voice, 


284  MR.  MOORE. 

which  is  a  little  hoarse  in  speaking,  (at  least,  I 
used  to  think  so,)  softens  into  a  breath,  like 
that  of  the  flute,  when  singing.  In  speaking, 
he  is  emphatic  in  rolling  the  letter  r,  perhaps 
out  of  a  despair  of  being  able  to  get  rid  of  the 
national  peculiarity.  The  structure  of  his  ver- 
sification, when  I  knew  him,  was  more  artifi- 
cial than  it  has  been  since ;  and  in  his  serious 
compositions  suited  him  better.  He  has  hardly 
faith  enough  in  what  he  does,  to  give  way  to 
his  impulses,  except  when  they  are  lively ;  and 
artificial  thoughts  demand  a  similar  embodi- 
ment. But  he  contemplated  the  fine,  easy- 
playing,  muscular  style  of  Dryden,  with  a 
sort  of  perilous  pleasure.  I  remember  his 
quoting  with  delight  a  couplet  of  Dryden's, 
which  came  with  a  particular  grace  out  of  his 
mouth : 

Let  honour  and  preferment  go  for  gold : 
But  glorious  beauty  isn't  to  be  sold. 

Beside  the  pleasure  I  took  in  Mr.  Moore's 
society  as  a  man  of  wit,  I  had  a  great  esteem 
for  him  as  a  man  of  candour  and  indepen- 
dence. His  letters  were  full  of  all  that  was 


MR.  MOORE.  285 

pleasant  in  him.  As  I  was  a  critic  at  that 
time,  and  in  the  habit  of  giving  my  opinion  of 
his  works  in  the  Examiner,  he  would  write 
me  his  opinion  of  the  opinion.,  with  a  mixture 
of  good-humour,  admission,  and  deprecation, 
so  truly  delightful,  and  a  sincerity  of  criticism 
on  my  own  writings  so  extraordinary  for  so 
courteous  a  man,  though  with  abundance  of 
balm  and  eulogy,  that  never  any  subtlety  of 
compliment  could  surpass  it ;  and  with  all  my 
self-confidence,  I  never  ceased  to  think  that 
the  honour  was  on  my  side,  and  that  I  could 
only  deserve  such  candour  of  intercourse  by 
being  as  ingenuous  as  himself.  This  admiring 
regard  for  him  he  completed  by  his  behaviour 
to  an  old  patron  of  his,  who  not  thinking  it 
polite  to  retain  him  openly  by  his  side,  pro- 
posed to  facilitate  his  acceptance  of  a  place  un- 
der the  Tories ;  an  accommodation  which  Mr. 
Moore  rejected  as  an  indignity.  If  any  body 
at  that  time  had  told  me,  that  our  new  and 
cordial  Anacreon,  who  counted  a  lofty  spirit 
among  his  luxuries,  could  do  a  disingenuous 
thing,  or  sacrifice  a  cause  or  a  free  sentiment 
on  the  fat  altars  of  aristocracy, — a  sweet-smell- 


286  MR.  MOOllE. 

ing  savour  unto  a  lord, — I  should  have  an- 
swered, that  all  that  might  be  in  the  common 
course  of  the  prose  of  this  life ;  but  that  no- 
body knew  what  superiority  there  was  to  con- 
ventional deductions  in  the  very  weaknesses 
of  a  poet.* 

I  remember  our  astonishment  in  Italy  (Lord 
Byron's  included)  at  the  flaming  panegyric 
passed  by  Mr.  Moore  upon  England,  and  all 
things  English,  at  a  dinner  in  Paris.  It  was 
his  farewell  dinner,  if  I  recollect,  when  leaving 
Paris  for  London.  Either  the  English  pane- 
gyric or  the  Irish  Melodies  were  certainly  much 
in  the  wrong ;  nor  is  it  easy  to  decide  what 
Captain  Rock  would  have  said  to  it.  But  the 
invective  against  Rousseau  and  poor  Madame 
de  Warens,  in  Mr.  Moore's  Rhymes  on  the 
Road,  was  still  more  startling.  Madame  de 
Warens  is  not  a  person  to  be  approved  of  in  all 
respects,  perhaps  in  very  few.  She  had  a  kind 
heart,  but  a  dangerous,  ill-regulated  will,  and 
might  at  least  have  abstained  from  loving  the 

*  For  the  circumstance  which  more  immediately  occa- 
sioned these  remarks,  see  p.  58. 


MR.  MOORE.  287 

sour-faced  gardener,  and  sacrificing  her  natural 
love  of  truth  to  degrading  secrecies.  But  no- 
body thinks  otherwise  of  her  than  she  was ; 
and  Mr.  Moore's  denouncement  was,  to  say  the 
least  of  it,  superfluous.  These  things  may  be 
safely  left  to  the  heart  of  the  community. 
The  evil  mixed  with  them  may  even  suggest 
a  better  good,  if  discussed  handsomely  and 
sincerely.  Madame  de  Warens  was  a  means 
of  setting  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  minds 
that  have  appeared  in  the  world,  upon  specula- 
tions not  the  less  interesting  to  humanity,  be- 
cause coteries,  not  so  good  as  herself,  choose  to 
cant  about  them.  Mr.  Grainger,  the  biogra- 
phical painter  of  portraits,  who  was  a  clergy- 
man, and  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  show  a 
"  zeal  beyond  knowledge,"  would  have  been 
charitable  enough  to  call  her  "  open-hearted," 
which  is  an  epithet  he  does  not  scruple  to  give 
even  to  the  meretricious  Duchess  of  Cleveland. 
Mr.  Moore,  on  the  other  hand,  instead  of  taking 
her  along  with  him  as  he  ought  to  do,  and 
trying  how  kindly  he  can  unite  his  own  moral 
improvement  with  that  of  "  exquisite  mothers" 
in  general,  thinks  fit  to  shake  his  Anacreon 


288  MR.  MOORE. 

laurels  at  her,  and  call  her  a  naughty  woman. 
I  would  have  done,  if  I  were  he,  with  this  two- 
o'clock-in-the  morning  penitence,  with  maudlin 
tears  in  its  eyes  ;  and  set  myself  to  the  task  of 
reformation  in  a  more  masculine  and  social 
style.  It  is  not  handsome  of  him ;  it  is  not 
grateful ;  it  is  not  gallant.  Human  beings  are 
all  worth  being  mentioned  with  common  hu- 
manity ;  and  we  make  poor  amends  for  offences 
we  may  have  committed  ourselves,  by  re- 
proaching those  who  have  sinned  with  us. 
The  great  thing  in  this  world,  is  to  learn  what 
to  do,  and  how  to  carry  humanity  forward ; 
not  to  reproach  any  one ;  no,  not  even  our- 
selves. We  should  reproach  ourselves  only 
for  petty  and  useless  feelings,  and  the  want  of 
a  real  sympathy.  If  Mr.  Moore,  as  he  once 
told  me  he  did,  thinks  it  useless  to  attempt 
improvement  in  this  world,  he  is  at  least  not 
very  reasonable  in  thinking  it  necessary  to  re- 
peat maudlin  common  places,  for  the  sake  of 
their  eternal  reproduction  ;  for  they  do  nothing 
else.  The  world  will  continue  to  laugh  with 
his  gaieties,  and  think  nothing  of  his  gravities  ; 


Mil.  MOORE.  289 

let  him  give  as  many  premiums  for  pleasure 
and  penitence,  as  he  may. 

A  word  respecting  the  suppression  of  Lord 
Byron's  auto-biography.  The  public  have 
seen  a  letter  of  Mr.  Moore's,  stating  how  it 
was  that  the  manuscript  of  his  friend's  Life 
came  to  be  destroyed,  and  how  his  Lordship's 
family  would  have  reimbursed  him  for  the  loss 
of  the  profits ;  an  offer  which,  from  feelings 
and  considerations  "  unnecessary"  then  to  ex- 
plain," he  "  respectfully  but  peremptorily  de- 
clined." The  meaning  of  this  is,  that  Lord 
Byron  presented  Mr.  Moore  with  the  Life  for 
the  purpose  of  turning  it  into  money ;  that 
Mr.  Moore  did  so,  and  got  two  thousand  gui- 
neas for  it  (a  poor  sum,  by  the  by,  if  it  was 
all  he  was  to  have) :  and  that  although  he 
had  no  objection  to  receive  money  in  this 
way,  he  had  in  any  other.  I  do  not  insinuate 
that  he  might  as  well  have  accepted  the  money 
then  offered  ;  but  Mr.  Moore,  on  this  and  other 
occasions,  has  been  willing  to  give  the  com- 
mercial British  public  to  understand,  that  he 
has  a  horror  of  pecuniary  obligations,  though, 

VOL.  i.  u 


290  MR.  MOORE. 

it   seems,  he  has  no  objection   to  pecuniary 's 
worth.     This,  I  confess,  is  a  splitting  of  hairs, 
which  I  do  not  understand.    If  a  friend  is  worth 
being  obliged  to,  I  do  not  see  how  a  man  is 
less  obliged,*  or  has  less  reason  to  be  so,  by  ac- 
cepting his  manuscripts  than  his  money.      It 
is  an  escape,  not  from  the  thing,  but  the  name ; 
and  if  I  were  the  obliger,  I  confess  I  should 
draw  a  different  conclusion  from  what  Lord 
Byron  may  have  done,  respecting  the  real  re- 
gard or  spirit  of  the  man,  who  thought  so  in- 
geniously of  my  Life,  and  so  awfully  of  my 
guineas.     That  the  tenure  of  the  noble  Bard's 
respect  in  this  matter  was  indeed  very  preca- 
rious, is  evident  from   the  bill  he  brought  in 
against  Mr.  Dallas ;  a  leaf  from  the  ledger  of 
his  Lordship's  memory,  which,  I  think,  must 
have  startled  Mr.  Moore. 

Mr.  Dallas  having  made  a  preposterous 
statement  of  the  value  of  his  zeal  and  advice, 
in  encouraging  Lord  Byron  to  be  a  poet,  and 
observed  that  it  far  outweighed,  in  his  opinion, 
the  six  or  seven  hundred  pounds  obtained  by 
the  copyright  of  '*  Childe  Harold,"  which 
the  noble  Bard  had  given  him,  his  Lordship 


MR.  MOORE.  291 

makes  a  per  contra  statement,   as  creditor,  in 
the  following 

"  MEMORANDUM. 

Two  hundred  pounds  before  I  was  twenty 
years  old. 

Copyright  of  Childe  Harold,  6001.  • 

Copyright  of  Corsair,  5001. 

And  501.  for  his  nephew  on  entering  the 
army ;  in  all,  13501.  and  not  6  or  7001.  as  the 
worthy  accountant  reckons." 

Here  the  noble  Lord  is  clearly  of  opinion, 
that  money  and  money's  worth  are  one  and  the 
same  thing.  He  was  therefore  prepared,  could 
occasion  have  possibly  arisen,  to  bring  in  a  si- 
milar account  to  Mr.  Moore,  for  the  sum  of 
2000/.  The  truth  is,  Mr.  Moore's  notion  in 
this  matter  is  a  commonplace ;  and  I  used 
to  think  him  higher  above  commonplaces  than 
he  is.  I  should  look  upon  myself  as  more  tied, 
and  rendered  more  dependent,  by  living  as  he 
does  among  the  great,  and  flattering  the  mis- 
takes of  the  vulgar,  than  by  accepting  thou- 
sands from  individuals  whom  1  loved.  When 
I  came  to  know  Lord  Byron  as  I  did,  I  could 
no  more  have  accepted  his  manuscripts  than  his 

u  2 


292  MR.  MOORE. 

money,  unless  I  could  prove  to  myself  that  I 
had  a  right  to  them  in  the  way  of  business. 
Till  then,  I  would  as  soon  have  taken  the  one 
as  the  other,  if  I  took  any.  The  reader  shall 
see  what  I  have  done  in  that  way,  and  I  am  not 
ashamed  of  it,  though  I  confess  I  would  wil- 
lingly have  to  make  the  acknowledgment  to  a 
different  state  of  society.  One  does  not  like 
to  be  thought  ill  of  by  any  body  ;  but  if  I  am 
to  choose,  I  would  rather  have  the  good  con- 
struction of  half  a  dozen  individuals  really 
generous,  than  the  good  word  of  all  the  mul- 
titudes, who  are  agreed  only  to  flatter,  to  feed 
on,  and  to  fight  shy  of  one  another. 

As  it  is  not  pleasant  to  leave  off  speaking 
of  such  a  man  with  an  ill  taste  in  one's  mouth, 
(the  champagne  indeed  in  the  thought  of  him 
hardly  allows  it  to  be  possible,)  I  will  conclude 
this  notice  with  a  memorandum  of  him  four- 
teen years  ago.  It  is  one  of  my  prison  recol- 
lections. I  remember  when  I  was  showing 
him  and  Lord  Byron  the  prison-garden,  a 
smart  shower  came  on,  which  induced  Moore  to 
button  up  his  coat,  and  push  on  for  the  interior. 
He  returned  instantly,  blushing  up  to  the  eyes. 


MR.  MOORE.  293 

He  had  forgotten  the  lameness  of  his  noble 
friend.  "  How  much  better  you  behaved," 
said  he  to  me  afterwards,  "  in  not  hastening  to 
get  out  of  the  rain  !  I  quite  forgot,  at  the  mo- 
ment, whom  I  was  walking  with."  I  told  him, 
that  the  virtue  was  involuntary  on  my  part, 
having  been  occupied  in  conversation  with  his 
Lordship,  which  he  was  not ;  and  that  to  forget 
a  man's  lameness  involved  a  compliment  in  it, 
which  the  sufferer  could  not  dislike."  "  True," 
says  he;  "  but  the  devil  of  it  was,  that  I  was 
forced  to  remember  it,  by  his  not  coming  up. 
I  could  not  in  decency  go  on ;  and  to  return 
was  very  awkward."  This  anxiety  appeared  to 
me  very  amiable. 


MR.  SHELLEY. 

WITH   A  CRITICISM   ON  HIS  GENIUS,  AND 

MR.  TRELAWNEY'S  NARRATIVE  OF 

HIS  LOSS  AT  SEA. 


MR.  SHELLEY,  when  he  died,  was  in  his 
thirtieth  year.  His  figure  was  tall  and  slight, 
and  his  constitution  consumptive.  He  was  sub- 
ject to  violent  spasmodic  pains,  which  would 
sometimes  force  him  to  lie  on  the  ground  till 
they  were  over;  but  he  had  always  a  kind 
word  to  give  to  those  about  him,  when  his 
pangs  allowed  him  to  speak.  In  this  orga- 
nization, as  well  as  in  some  other  respects,  he 
resembled  the  German  poet,  Schiller.  Though 
well-turned,  his  shoulders  were  bent  a  little, 
owing  to  premature  thought  and  trouble.  The 
same  causes  had  touched  his  hair  with  grey ; 


MR.  SHELLEY.  295 

and  though  his  habits  of  temperance  and 
exercise  gave  him  a  remarkable  degree  of 
strength,  it  is  not  supposed  that  he  could  have 
lived  many  years.  He  used  to  say,  that  he  had 
lived  three  times  as  long  as  the  calendar  gave 
out ;  which  he  would  prove,  between  jest  and 
earnest,  by  some  remarks  on  Time, 

"  That  would  have  puzzled  that  stout  Stagyrite." 

Like  the  Stagyrite's,  his  voice  was  high  and 
weak.  His  eyes  were  large  and  animated, 
with  a  dash  of  wildness  in  them ;  his  face 
small,  but  well- shaped,  particularly  the  mouth 
and  chin,  the  turn  of  which  was  very  sensi- 
tive and  graceful.  His  complexion  was  na- 
turally fair  and  delicate,  with  a  colour  in  the 
cheeks.  He  had  brown  hair,  which,  though 
tinged  with  grey,  surmounted  his  face  well, 
being  in  considerable  quantity,  and  tending 
to  a  curl.  His  side-face  upon  the  whole  was 
deficient  in  strength,  and  his  features  would  not 
have  told  well  in  a  bust ;  but  when  fronting 
and  looking  at  you  attentively,  his  aspect  had 
a  certain  seraphical  character  that  would  have 
suited  a  portrait  of  John  the  Baptist,  or  the 


296  MR.  SHELI.EY. 

angel  whom  Milton  describes  as  holding  a  reed 
"  tipt  with  fire."     Nor  would  the  most  religi- 
ous mind,  had  it  known  him,  have  objected 
to  the  comparison ;  for,  with  all  his  scepticism, 
Mr.  Shelley's  disposition  may  be  truly  said  to 
have  been  any  thing  but  irreligious.     A  per- 
son of  much  eminence  for  piety  in  our  times 
has  well  observed,  that  the  greatest  want  of 
religious  feeling  is  not  to  be  found  among  the 
greatest  infidels,  but  among  those  who  never 
think  of  religion  but  as  a  matter  of  course. 
The  leading  feature  of  Mr.  Shelley's  character, 
may  be  said  to  have  been  a  natural  piety.     He 
was  pious  towards  nature,  towards  his  friends, 
towards  the  whole  human  race,  towards  the 
meanest  insect  of  the  forest.     He  did  himself 
an  injustice  with  the  public,  in  using  the  po- 
pular   name   of  the    Supreme    Being    incon- 
siderately.     He  identified  it   solely  with  the 
most  vulgar  and  tyrannical  notions  of  a  God 
made  after  the  worst  human  fashion ;  and  did 
not  sufficiently  reflect,  that  it  was  often  used 
by  a  juster  devotion  to  express  a  sense  of  the 
great  Mover  of  the  universe.     An  impatience 
in  contradicting  worldly  and  pernicious  notions 


i\ 


MR.  SHELLEY.  297 

of  a  supernatural  power,  led  his  own  aspira- 
tions to  be  misconstrued ;  for  though,  in  the 
severity  of  his   dialectics,   and  particularly  in 
moments  of  despondency,   he   sometimes  ap- 
peared to  be  hopeless  of  what  he  most  desired, 
— and  though  he  justly  thought,  that  a  Di- 
vine Being  would  prefer  the  increase  of  bene- 
volence and  good  before  any  praise,  or  even 
recognition  of  himself,  (a  reflection  worth  think- 
ing of  by  the  intolerant,)  yet  there  was  in  re- 
ality no  belief  to  which  he  clung  with  more 
fondness  than  that  of  some   great   pervading 
"  Spirit  of  Intellectual   Beauty  ;"  as   may  be 
seen   in  his   aspirations  on  that   subject.     He 
said  to  me  in  the  cathedral  at  Pisa,  while  the 
organ  was  playing,  "  What  a  divine  religion 
might   be   found  out,   if  charity   were   really 
made  the  principle  of  it,  instead  of  faith  !" 

Music  affected  him  deeply.  He  had  also  a 
delicate  perception  of  the  beauties  of  sculp- 
ture. It  is  not  one  of  the  least  evidences  of 
his  conscientious  turn  of  mind,  that  with  the 
inclination,  and  the  power,  to  surround  him- 
self in  Italy  with  all  the  graces  of  life,  he 
made  no  sort  of  attempt  that  way  ;  finding 


298  MR.  SHELLEY. 

other  use  for  his  money,  and  not  always  sa- 
tisfied with  himself  for  indulging  even  in  the 
luxury  of  a  boat.  When  he  bought  elegancies 
of  any  kind,  it  was  to  give  away.  Boating 
was  his  great  amusement.  He  loved  the  mix- 
ture of  action  and  repose  which  he  found  in 
it;  and  delighted  to  fancy  himself  gliding 
away  to  Utopian  isles,  and  bowers  of  enchant- 
ment. But  he  would  give  up  any  pleasure 
to  do  a  deed  of  kindness.  "  His  life,"  says 
Mrs.  Shelley,  "  was  spent  in  the  contempla- 
tion of  nature,  in  arduous  study,  or  in  acts 
of  kindness  and  affection.  He  was  an  elegant 
scholar,  and  a  profound  metaphysician.  With- 
out possessing  much  scientific  knowledge,  he 
was  unrivalled  in  the  justness  and  extent  of 
his  observations  on  natural  objects:  he  knew 
every  plant  by  its  name,  and  was  familiar  with 
the  history  and  habits  of  every  production  of 
the  earth :  he  could  interpret,  without  a  fault, 
each  appearance  in  the  sky ;  and  the  varied 
phenomena  of  heaven  and  earth  filled  him 
with  deep  emotion.  He  made  his  study  and 
reading-room  of  the  shadowed  copse,  the 
stream,  the  lake,  and  the  waterfall." — Preface 


MR.  SHELLEY.  299 

to  his  Posthumous  Poems,  p.  14.  "  The  com- 
parative solitude,"  observes  the  same  lady,  "  in 
which  Mr.  Shelley  lived,  was  the  occasion  that 
he  was  personally  known  to  few  ;  and  his  fear- 
less enthusiasm  in  the  cause  which  he  con- 
sidered the  most  sacred  upon  earth,  the  im- 
provement of  the  moral  and  physical  state  of 
mankind,  was  the  chief  reason  why  he,  like 
other  illustrious  reformers,  was  pursued  by  ha- 
tred and  calumny.  No  man  was  ever  more 
devoted  than  he  to  the  endeavour  of  making 
those  around  him  happy ;  no  man  ever  pos- 
sessed friends  more  unfeignedly  attached  to 
him.  Before  the  critics  contradict  me,  let 
them  appeal  to  any  one  who  had  ever  known 
him.  To  see  him  was  to  love  him." — Ibid. 
This  is  a  high  character,  and  I,  for  one,  know 
it  was  deserved.  I  should  be  glad  to  know, 
how  many  wives  of  Mr.  Shelley's  calumnia- 
tors could  say  as  much  of  their  husbands ;  or 
how  many  of  the  critics  would  believe  them, 
if  they  did. 

Mr.  Shelley's  comfort  was  a  sacrifice  to  the 
perpetual  contradiction  between  the  professions 
of  society  and  their  practice ;  between  "  the 


300  MR.  SHELLEY. 

shows  of  things  and  the  desires  of  the  mind." 
Temperament  and  early  circumstances  con- 
spired to  make  him  a  reformer,  at  a  time  of  life 
when  few  begin  to  think  for  themselves ;  and 
it  was  his  misfortune,  as  far  as  immediate  re- 
putation was  concerned,  that  he  was  thrown 
upon  society  with  a  precipitancy  and  vehe- 
mence, which  rather  startled  them  with  fear 
for  themselves,  than  allowed  them  to  become 
sensible  of  the  love  and  zeal  that  impelled  him. 
He  was  like  a  spirit  that  had  darted  out  of  its 
orb,  and  found  itself  in  another  planet.  I 
used  to  tell  him  that  he  had  come  from  the 
planet  Mercury.  When  I  heard  of  the  cata- 
strophe that  overtook  him,  it  seemed  as  if  this 
spirit,  not  sufficiently  constituted  like  the  rest 
of  the  world,  to  obtain  their  sympathy,  yet 
gifted  with  a  double  portion  of  love  for  all 
living  things,  had  been  found  dead  in  a  solitary 
corner  of  the  earth,  its  wings  stiffened,  its 
warm  heart  cold  ;  the  relics  of  a  misunderstood 
nature  slain  by  the  ungenial  elements. 

That  the  utility,  however,  of  so  much  bene- 
volence was  not  lost  to  the  world,  whatever 
difference  of  opinion  may  exist  as  to  its  occa- 


Mil.  SHELLEY.  301 

sional  mode  of  showing  itself,  will  be  evinced, 
I  hope,  by  the  following  pages. 

Mr.  Shelley  was  the  eldest  son  of  Sir  Ti- 
mothy Shelley,  Bart,  of  Castle-Goring,  in  Sus- 
sex ;  and  was  born  at  Field-Place,  in  that 
county,  the  4th  of  August,  1792.* 

It  is  difficult,  under  any  circumstances,  to 
speak  with  proper  delicacy  of  the  living  con- 
nexions of  the  dead ;  but  it  is  no  violation  of 
decorum  to  observe  (what,  indeed,  the  reader 
knows  already,  if  he  knows  any  thing  of  Par- 
liament,) that  the  family  connexions  of  Mr. 

*  Gibbon  has  a  note  in  his  Decline  and  Fall,  in  which, 
with  a  greater  degree  of  romance  than  might  have  been  ex- 
pected of  him,  even  with  all  his  self-love  as  a  man  of  letters, 
he  "  exhorts"  the  noble  family  of  the  Spensers  to  consider  the 
Fairy  Queen  as  the  "  brightest  jewel  in  their  coronet."  The 
Shelleys  are  of  old  standing,  and  have  branched  out  into  three 
several  baronetcies,  one  of  which  has  become  the  representa- 
tive of  the  kindred  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney.  Mr.  Shelley  had  a 
respect  for  that  distinction,  carelessly  as  he  contemplated  the 
other  family  honours.  He  would  have  allowed  no  claim  for 
superiority  to  be  put  in  there.  But  if  I  had  a  right  to  speak 
like  Gibbon,  and  if  affection  might  be  allowed  to  anticipate 
the  voice  of  posterity,  I  would  "  exhort"  in  like  manner  the 
race  of  the  Shelleys  to  pierce  through  the  din  of  existing  pre- 
judices, and  consider  no  sound  so  fair  as  the  name  of  their 
aspiring  kinsman. 


302  MR.  SHELLEY. 

Shelley  belonged  to  a  small  party  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  itself  belonging  to  another  party. 
They  were  Whig  Aristocrats;  a  distinction 
that,  within  a  late  period,  has  been  handsomely 
merged  by  some  of  the  bearers  of  it  into  the 
splendour  of  a  more  prevailing  universality. 
To  a  man  of  genius,  endowed  with  a  meta- 
physical acuteness  to  discern  truth  and  false- 
hood, and  a  strong  sensibility  to  give  way  to  his 
sense  of  it,  such  an  origin,  however  respectable 
in  the  ordinaiy  point  of  view,  was  not  the 
very  luckiest  that  could  have  happened  for  the 
purpose  of  keeping  him  within  ordinary  bounds. 
With  what  feelings  is  Truth  to  open  its  eyes 
upon  this  world  among  the  most  respectable  of 
our  mere  party  gentry  ?  Among  licensed  con- 
tradictions of  all  sorts?  among  the  Christian's 
doctrines  and  the  worldly  practices  ?  Among 
fox-hunters  and  their  chaplains  ?  among  bene- 
ficed  loungers,  noli-episcoparian  bishops,  rakish 
old  gentlemen,  and  more  startling  young  ones, 
who  are  old  in  the  folly  of  knowingness  ?  In 
short,  among  all  those  professed  demands  of  what 
is  right  and  noble,  mixed  with  real  inculcations 
of  what  is  wrong  and  full  of  hypocrisy,  which 


MR.  SHELLEY.  303 

have  been  so  admirably  exposed  by  Mr.  Ben- 
tham,  and  which  he  has  fortunately  helped 
some  of  our  best  living  statesmen  to  leave  out 
of  the  catalogue  of  their  ambitions. 

Mr.  Shelley  began  to  think  at  a  very  early 
age,  and  to  think  too  of  these  anomalies.  He 
saw,  that  at  every  step  in  life  some  compro- 
mise was  expected  between  a  truth  which  he 
was  told  not  to  violate,  and  a  colouring  and 
double-meaning  of  it,  which  forced  him  upon 
the  violation. 

Doubtless  there  are  numbers  of  young  men 
who  discern  nothing  of  all  this ;  and  who,  com- 
paratively speaking,  become  respectable  tellers 
of  truth  in  spite  of  it.  These  are  the  honour- 
able part  of  the  orthodox ;  good-natured  fa- 
thers and  husbands,  conscientious  clergymen, 
respectable  men  in  various  walks  of  life,  who, 
thinking  they  abide  by  the  ideas  that  have 
been  set  before  them,  really  have  very  few 
ideas  of  any  thing,  and  are  only  remarkable  for 
affording  specimens  of  every  sort  of  common- 
place, comfortable  or  unhappy.  On  the  other 
hand,  numbers  of  young  men  get  a  sense  of 
this  confusion  of  principles,  if  not  with  a  direct 


304  MR.  SHELLEY. 

and  logical  consciousness,  yet  with  an  instinct 
for  turning  it  to  account.     Even  some  of  these, 
by  dint  of  a  genial  nature,  and  upon  the  same 
principle    on   which   a   heathen    priest   would 
eschew  the  vices  of  his  mythology,  turn  out 
decent  members  of  society.     But   how  many 
others  are  spoilt  for  ever  !     How  many  victims 
to  this  confusion  of  truth  and  falsehood,  appa- 
rently flourishing,   but   really  callous   or   un- 
happy, are  to  be  found  in  all  quarters  of  the 
community ;  men  who  profess  opinions  which 
contradict   their  whole  lives;    takers  of  oaths, 
which  they  dispense  with  the  very  thought  of; 
subscribers   to   articles   which  they  doubt,   or 
even  despise ;    triflers  with  their  hourly  word 
for  gain ;    expedient   statesmen ;    ready   hire- 
lings of  power  ;  sneering  disbelievers  in  good ; 
teachers   to   their   own   children  of  what  has 
spoilt  themselves,  and  has  rendered  their  exist- 
ence a  dull  and  selfish  mockery. 

Whenever  a  character  like  Mr.  Shelley's  ap- 
pears in  society,  it  must  be  considered  with 
reference  to  these  systems.  Others  may  con- 
sent to  be  spoilt  by  them,  and  to  see  their 


MR.  SHELLEY.  305 

fellow-creatures  spoilt.  He  was  a  looker-on  of 
a  different  nature. 

With  this  jumble,  then,  of  truth  and  false- 
hood in  his  head,  and  a  genius  born  to  detect 
it,  though  perhaps  never  quite  able  to  rid  itself 
of  the  injury,  (for  if  ever  he  deviated  into  an 
error  unworthy  of  him,  it  was  in  occasionally 
condescending,  though  for  the  kindest  pur- 
poses, to  use  a  little  double-dealing.)  Mr.  Shel- 
ley was  sent  to  Eton,  and  afterwards  to  the 
University  of  Oxford.  At  Eton,  a  Quarterly 
Reviewer  recollects  him  setting  trees  on  fire 
with  a  burning-glass ;  a  proceeding  which  the 
critic  sets  down  to  his  natural  taste  for  de- 
struction. A  more  impartial  and  not  less  phi- 
losophic observer  might  have  attributed  it  to 
the  natural  curiosity  of  genius.  Perhaps,  if 
the  Reviewer  recollected  Mr.  Shelley,  Mr. 
Shelley  no  less  recollected  him  as  one  of  the 
school-tyrants  against  whom  he  rose  up,  in 
opposition  to  the  system  of  fagging.  Against 
this  custom  he  formed  a  conspiracy ;  and  for 
a  time  made  it  pause,  at  least  as  far  as  his  own 
person  was  concerned.  Mr.  Shelley's  feelings 

VOL.  i.  x 


306  MR.  SHELLEY. 

at  this  period  of  his  life  are  touchingly  and 
powerfully  described  in  the  dedication  of  the 
Revolt  cf  Islam. 

"  Thoughts  of  great  deeds  were  mine,  dear  Friend,  when 
first 

The  clouds  which  wrap  this  world  from  youth  did  pass. 
I  do  remember  well  the  hour  which  burst 

My  spirit's  sleep  :  a  fresh  May-day  it  was, 
When  I  walk'd  forth  upon  the  glittering  grass, 

And  wept,  I  knew  not  why  ;  until  there  rose 
From  the  near  school-room,  voices,  that,  alas  ! 

Were  but  one  echo  from  a  world  of  woes — 
The  harsh  and  grating  strife  of  tyrants  and  of  foes. 

"  And  then  I  clasped  my  hands,  and  look'd  around — 

But  none  was  near  to  mock  my  streaming  eyes, 
Which  poured  their  warm  drops  on  the  sunny  ground. — 

So  without  shame  I  spake  ;  '  I  will  be  wise, 
And  just,  and  free,  and  mild,  if  in  me  lies 

Such  power ;  for  I  grow  weary  to  behold 
The  selfish  and  the  strong  still  tyrannise 

Without  reproach  or  check.'     I  then  controlled 
My  tears ;  my  heart  grew  calm,  and  I  was  meek  and  bold. 

"  And  from  that  hour  did  I,  with  earnest  thought, 
Heap  knowledge  from  forbidden  mines  of  lore ; 

Yet  nothing  that  my  tyrants  knew  or  taught 
I  cared  to  learn  ;  but  from  that  secret  store 

Wrought  linked  armour  for  my  soul,  before 
It  might  walk  forth  to  war  among  mankind." 


MR.  SHELLEY.  30? 

Mr.  Shelley  retained  all  his  kindness  and 
energy,  but  corrected,  as  he  here  aspires  to  do, 
the  irritability  of  his  temper.  No  man,  by  the 
account  of  all  who  lived  with  him,  ever  turned 
it  into  greater  sweetness.  The  Reviewer,  by 
the  usual  process  of  tyranny,  became  a  slave. 

Mr.  Shelley,  I  believe,  was  taken  from  Eton 
before  the  regular  period  for  leaving  school. 
His  unconventional  spirit,  penetrating,  sin- 
cere, and  demanding  the  reason  and  justice  of 
things,  was  found  to  be  inconvenient.  At 
Oxford  it  was  worse.  Logic  was  there  put 
into  his  hands  ;  and  he  used  it  in  the  most 
uncompromising  manner.  The  more  impor- 
tant the  proposition,  the  more  he  thought 
himself  bound  to  investigate  it :  the  greater 
the  demand  upon  his  assent,  the  less,  upon 
their  own  principle  of  reasoning,  he  thought 
himself  bound  to  grant  it.  The  result  was 
expulsion. 

Conceive  a  young  man  of  Mr.  Shelley's 
character,  with  no  better  experience  of  the 
kindness  and  sincerity  of  those  whom  he  had 
perplexed,  thrown  forth  into  society,  to  form 
his  own  judgments,  and  pursue  his  own  career. 

x  2 


308  MR.  SHELLEY. 

It  was  "  Emilius  out  in  the  World?  but  formed 
by  his  own  tutorship.  There  is  a  Novel,  under 
that  title,  written  by  the  German,  La  Fon- 
taine, which  has  often  reminded  me  of  him. 
The  hero  of  another,  by  the  same  author,  eall- 
e'd  the  "  Reprobate"  still  more  resembles  him. 
His  way  of  proceeding  was  entirely  after  the 
fashion  of  those  guileless,  but  vehement  hearts, 
which  not  being  well  replied  to  by  their  teach- 
ers, and  finding  them  hostile  to  inquiry,  add 
to  a  natural  love  of  truth  all  the  passionate  ar- 
dour of  a  generous  and  devoted  protection  of 
it.  Mr.  Shelley  had  met  with  Mr.  Godwin's 
"  Political  Justice ;"  and  he  seemed  to  breathe, 
for  the  first  time,  in  an  open  and  bright  at- 
mosphere. He  resolved  to  square  all  his  ac- 
tions by  what  he  conceived  to  be  the  strict- 
est justice,  without  any  consideration  for  the 
opinions  of  those,  whose  little  exercise  of 
that  virtue  towards  himself,  ill-fitted  them,  he 
thought,  for  better  teachers,  and  as  ill  war- 
ranted him  in  deferring  to  the  opinions  of  the 
world  whom  they  guided.  That  he  did  some 
extraordinary  things  in  consequence,  is  admit- 
ted: that  he  did  many  noble  ones,  and  all 


MR.  SHELLEY.  309 

with  sincerity,  is  well  known  to  his  friends, 
and  will  be  admitted  by  all  sincere  persons. 
Let  those  who  are  so  fond  of  exposing  their 
own  natures,  by  attributing  every  departure 
from  ordinary  conduct  to  bad  motives,  ask 
themselves  what  conduct  could  be  more  extra- 
ordinary in  their  eyes,  and  at  the  same  time 
less  attributable  to  a  bad  motive,  than  the  re- 
jection of  an  estate  for  the  love  of  a  principle. 
Yet  Mr.  Shelley  rejected  one.  He  had  only 
to  become  a  yea  and  nay  man  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  to  be  one  of  the  richest  men  in  Sus- 
sex. He  declined  it,  and  lived  upon  a  com- 
parative pittance.  Even  the  fortune  that  he 
would  ultimately  have  inherited,  as  secured  to 
his  person,  was  petty  in  the  comparison. 

We  will  relate  another  anecdote,  which  the 
conventional  will  not  find  it  so  difficult  to 
quarrel  with.  It  trenches  upon  that  extraor- 
dinary privilege  to  indulge  one  sex  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  other,  which  they  guard  with  so 
jealous  a  care,  and  so  many  hypocritical  faces. 
The  question,  we  allow,  is  weighty.  We  are 
far  from  saying  it  is  here  settled ;  but  very  far 
are  they  themselves  from  having  settled  it ;  as 


310  MR.  SHELLEY. 

their  own  writings  and  writhings,  their  own 
statistics,  morals,  romances,  tears,  and  even 
jokes,  will  testify.  The  case,  I  understood* 
was  this ;  for  I  am  bound  to  declare  that  I 
forget  who  told  it  me ;  but  it  is  admirably  in 
character,  and  not  likely  to  be  invented.  Mr. 
Shelley  was  present  at  a  ball,  where  he  was  a 
person  of  some  importance.  Numerous  village 
ladies  were  there,  old  and  young ;  and  none  of 
the  passions  were  absent,  that  are  accustomed 
to  glance  in  the  eyes,  and  gossip  in  the  tongues, 
of  similar  gatherings  together  of  talk  and  dress. 
In  the  front  were  seated  the  rank  and  fashion 
of  the  place.  The  virtues  diminished,  as  the 
seats  went  backward ;  and  at  the  back  of  all, 
unspoken  to,  but  not  unheeded,  sat  blushing 
a  damsel  who  had  been  seduced.  We  do  not 
inquire  by  whom ;  probably  by  some  well-dress- 
ed gentleman  in  the  room,  who  thought  him- 
self entitled  nevertheless  to  the  conversation  of 
the  most  flourishing  ladies  present,  and  who 
naturally  thought  so,  because  he  had  it.  That 
sort  of  thing  happens  every  day.  It  was  ex- 
pected, that  the  young  squire  would  take  out 
one  of  these  ladies  to  dance.  What  is  the  con- 


MR.  SHELLEY 

sternation,  when  they  see  him  making  his  way 
to  the  back  benches,  and  handing  forth,  with 
an  air  of  consolation  and  tenderness,  the  object 
of  all  the  virtuous  scorn  of  the  room  !  the  per- 
son whom  that  other  gentleman,  wrong  as  he 
had  been  towards  her,  and  "  wicked"  as  the 
ladies  might  have  allowed  him  to  be  towards 
the  fair  sex  in  general,  would  have  shrunk 
from  touching! — Mr.  Shelley,  it  was  found, 
was  equally  unfit  for  school  tyrannies,  for 
universities,  and  for  the  chaste  orthodoxy  of 
squires'  tables.  So  he  went  up  to  town. 

The  philosophic  observer  will  confess,  that 
our  young  author's  experiences  in  education, 
politics,  and  gentlemanly  morality,  were  not  of 
a  nature  to  divert  him  from  his  notions  of  jus- 
tice, however  calculated  to  bring  him  into 
trouble.  Had  he  now  behaved  himself  par- 
donably in  the  eyes  of  the  orthodox,  he  would 
have  gone  to  London  with  the  resolution  of 
sowing  his  wild  oats,  and  becoming  a  decent 
member  of  society;  that  is  to  say,  he  would 
have  seduced  a  few  maid- servants,  or  at  least 
haunted  the  lobbies;  and  then  bestowed  the 
remnant  of  his  constitution  upon  some  young 


312  MR.  SHELLEY. 

| 

lady  of  his  own  rank  in  life,  and  settled  into  a 
proper  church-and-king  man,  perhaps  a  member 
of  the  Suppression  of  Vice.     This  is  the  proper 
routine,  and  gives  one  a  right  to  be  didactic. 
Alas !    Mr.  Shelley  did  not  do  so  ;  and  bitterly 
had  he  to  repent,  not  that  he  did  not  do  it,  but 
that  he  married  while  yet  a  stripling,  and  that 
the  wife  whom  he  took  was  not  of  a  nature  to 
appreciate   his    understanding,   or    perhaps  to 
come  from  contact  with  it,  uninjured  in  what 
she  had  of  her  own.     They  separated  by  mutual 
consent,  after  the  birth  of  two  children.     To 
this  measure  his   enemies  would  hardly  have 
demurred ;  especially  as  the  marriage  was  dis- 
approved by  Mr.  Shelley's  family,  and  the  lady 
of  inferior  rank.     It  might  have  been  regarded 
even  as  something  like  making  amends.     But 
to  one  thing  they  would  strongly  have  objected. 
He  proceeded,  in  the  spirit  of  Milton's  doc- 
trines, to  pay  his  court  to  another  lady.     We 
wish  we  could  pursue  the  story  in  the  same 
tone :  but  now  came  the  greatest  pang  of  Mr. 
Shelley's  life.     He  was  residing  at  Bath,  when 
news  came  to  him  that  his  wife  had  destroyed 
herself.      It  was  a  heavy  blow  to  him  ;  and  he 


MR.  SHELLEY.  313 

never  forgot  it.  Persons  who  riot  in  a  de- 
bauchery of  scandal,  delighting  in  endeavour- 
ing to  pull  down  every  one  to  their  own  stan- 
dard, and  in  repeating  the  grossest  charges  in 
the  grossest  words,  have  taken  advantage  of 
this  passage  in  Mr.  Shelley's  life,  to  show  their 
total  ignorance  of  his  nature,  and  to  harrow  up, 
one  would  think,  the  feelings  of  every  person 
connected  with  him,  by  the  most  wanton  pro- 
mulgation of  names,  and  the  most  odious  false- 
hoods. Luckily,  the  habitual  contempt  of 
truth  which  ever  accompanies  the  love  of  ca- 
lumny, serves  to  refute  it  with  all  those  whose 
good  opinion  is  worth  having.  So  leaving  the 
scandal  in  those  natural  sinks,  to  which  all  the 
calumnies  and  falsehoods  of  the  time  hasten, 
we  resume  our  remarks  with  the  honourable 
and  the  decent.  As  little  shall  we  dwell  upon 
the  conduct  of  one  or  two  persons  of  better  re- 
pute, who  instead  of  being  warned  against  be- 
lieving every  malignant  rumour  by  the  nature 
of  their  own  studies,  and  as  if  they  had  been 
jealous  of  a  zeal  in  behalf  of  mankind,  which 
they  had  long  been  accused  of  merging  in  spe- 
culations less  noble,  did  not  disdain  to  circulate 


314  MR.  SHELLEY. 

the  gossip  of  the  scandalous  as  far  as  other 
countries,  betraying  a  man  to  repulses,  who 
was  yearning  with  the  love  of  his  species  ;  and 
confounding  times,  places,  and  circumstances, 
in  the  eagerness  of  their  paltry  credulity. 
Among  other  falsehoods  it  was  stated,  that  Mr. 
Shelley,  at  that  time  living  with  his  wife,  had 
abruptly  communicated  to  her  his  intention  of 
separating  ;  upon  which  the  other  had  run  to  a 
pond  at  the  end  of  the  garden,  and  drowned 
herself.  The  fact,  as  we  have  seen,  is,  that  they 
had  been  living  apart  for  some  time,  during 
which  the  lady  was  accountable  to  no  one  but 
herself.  We  could  relate  another  story  of  the 
catastrophe  that  took  place,  did  we  not  feel 
sincerely  for  all  parties  concerned,  and  wish  to 
avoid  every  species  of  heart-burning.  Nobody 
could  lament  it  more  bitterly  than  Mr.  Shelley. 
For  a  time,  it  tore  his  being  to  pieces  ;  nor  is 
there  a  doubt,  that  however  deeply  he  was  ac- 
customed to  reason  on  the  nature  and  causes  of 
evil,  and  on  the  steps  necessary  to  be  taken  for 
opposing  it,  he  was  not  without  remorse  for 
having  no  better  exercised  his  judgment  with 
regard  to  the  degree  of  intellect  he  had  allied 


MR.  SHELLEY.  315 

himself  with,  and  for  having  given  rise  to  a 
premature  independence  of  conduct  in  one  un- 
equal to  the  task.  The  lady  was  greatly  to  be 
pitied  ;  so  was  the  survivor.  Let  the  school- 
tyrants,  the  University  refusers  of  argument, 
and  the  orthodox  sowers  of  their  wild  oats, 
with  myriads  of  unhappy  women  behind  them, 
rise  up  in  judgment  against  him.  Honester 
men  will  not  be  hindered  from  doing  justice  to 
sincerity,  wherever  they  find  it ;  nor  be  in- 
duced to  blast  the  memory  of  a  man  of  genius 
and  benevolence,  for  one  painful  passage  in  his 
life,  which  he  might  have  avoided,  had  he  been 
no  better  than  his  calumniators. 

On  the  death  of  this  unfortunate  lady,  Mr. 
Shelley  married  the  daughter  of  Mr.  Godwin  ; 
and  resided  at  Great  Marlow  in  Buckingham- 
shire, where  he  was  a  blessing  to  the  poor.  His 
charity,  though  liberal,  was  not  weak.  He  in- 
quired personally  into  the  circumstances  of  the 
petitioners ;  visited  the  sick  in  their  beds  (for 
he  had  gone  the  round  of  the  Hospitals  on  pur- 
pose to  be  able  to  practise  on  occasion) ;  and 
kept  a  regular  list  of  industrious  poor,  whom 
he  assisted  with  small  sums  to  make  up  their 


316  MR.  SHELLEY. 

accounts.*     At  Marlow  he  wrote  the  Revolt  of 
Islam.     Queen  Mob  was  an  earlier  production, 

*  "  Another  anecdote  remains,  not  the  least  in  interest." 
(I  was  speaking,  in  the  Literary  Examiner,  of  an  adventure 
of  Mr.  Shelley's,  at  the  time  he  was  on  a  visit  to  me  at 
Hampstead.)  Some  years  ago,  when  a  house  (on  the  top 
of  the  Heath)  "  was  occupied  by  a  person  whose  name  I 
forget,  (and  I  should  suppress  it  in  common  humanity,  if 
I  did  not,)  I  was  returning  home  to  my  own,  which  was  at 
no  great  distance  from  it,  after  the  Opera.  As  I  approached 
my  door,  I  heard  strange  and  alarming  shrieks,  mixed  with 
the  voice  of  a  man.  The  next  day,  it  was  reported  by  the 
gossips,  that  Mr.  Shelley,  no  Christian,  (for  it  was  he,  who 
was  there,)  had  brought  some  '  very  strange  female '  into 
the  house,  no  better  of  course  than  she  ought  to  be.  The 
real  Christian  had  puzzled  them.  Mr.  Shelley,  in  coming 
to  our  house  that  night,  had  found  a  woman  lying  near  the 
top  of  the  hill,  in  fits.  It  was  a  fierce  winter  night,  with 
snow  upon  the  ground;  and  winter  loses  nothing  of  its 
fierceness  at  Hampstead.  My  friend,  always  the  promptest 
as  well  as  most  pitying  on  these  occasions,  knocked  at  the 
first  houses  he  could  reach,  in  order  to  have  the  woman 
taken  in.  The  invariable  answer  was,  that  they  could  not  do 
it.  He  asked  for  an  outhouse  to  put  her  in,  while  he  went 
for  a  doctor.  Impossible !  In  vain  he  assured  them  she 
was  no  impostor.  They  would  not  dispute  the  point  with 
him  ;  but  doors  were  closed,  and  windows  were  shut  down. 
Had  he  lit  upon  worthy  Mr.  Park,  the  philologist,  he  would 
assuredly  have  come,  in  spite  of  his  Calvinism.  But  he 
lived  too  far  off.  Had  he  lit  upon  you,  dear  B n,  or 


MR.  SHELLEY.  317 

written  at  the  age  of  seventeen   or  eighteen, 
when  he  married ;   and  it  was  never  published 

your  neighbour   D e,   you  would   either   of    you  have 

jumped  up  from  amidst  your  books  or  your  bed-clothes,  and 
have  gone  out  with  him.  But  the  paucity  of  Christians 
is  astonishing,  considering  the  number  of  them.  Time  flies; 
the  poor  woman  is  in  convulsions ;  her  son,  a  young  man, 
lamenting  over  her.  At  last  my  friend  sees  a  carriage  driv- 
ing up  to  a  house  at  a  little  distance.  The  knock  is  given  ; 
the  warm  door  opens  ;  servants  and  lights  pour  forth.  Now, 
thought  he,  is  the  time.  He  puts  on  his  best  address,  which 
any  body  might  recognize  for  that  of  the  highest  gentle- 
man as  well  as  an  interesting  individual,  and  plants  him- 
self in  the  way  of  an  elderly  person,  who  is  stepping  out  of 
the  carriage  with  his  family.  He  tells  his  story.  They 
only  press  on  the  faster.  '  Will  you  go  and  see  her?'  'No, 
Sir:  there's  no  necessity  for  that  sort  of  thing,  depend 
on  it .  impostors  swarm  every  where :  the  thing  cannot  be 
done ;  sir,  your  conduct  is  extraordinary.'  '  Sir,'  cried 
Mr.  Shelley  at  last,  assuming  a  very  different  appearance, 
and  forcing  the  flourishing  householder  to  stop  out  of  astonish- 
ment, '  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  your  conduct  is  not  extraordi- 
nary :  and  if  my  own  seems  to  amaze  you,  I  will  tell  you 
something  that  may  amaze  you  a  little  more,  and  I  hope  will 
frighten  you.  It  is  such  men  as  you  who  madden  the  spirits 
and  the  patience  of  the  poor  and  wretched  :  and  if  ever  a  con- 
vulsion comes  in  this  country,  (which  is  very  probable,)  re- 
collect what  I  tell  you; — you  will  have  your  house,  that  you 
refuse  to  put  the  miserable  woman  into,  burnt  over  your 
head.'  '  God  bless  me,  Sir  !  Dear  me,  Sir  !'  exclaimed  the 


318  MR.  SHELLEY. 

with  his  consent.  He  regretted  the  publication 
when  it  did  take  place  some  years  afterwards, 
and  stated  as  much  in  the  newspapers,  consider- 
ing it  a  crude  performance,  and  as  not  suffici- 
ently entering  into  the  important  questions  it 
handled.  Yet  upon  the  strength  of  this  young 
and  unpublished  work,  he  was  deprived  of  his 
two  children. 

The  reader  perhaps  is  not  aware,  that  in  this 
country  of  England,  where  the  domestic  in- 
stitutions are  boasted  of  as  so  perfect,  and  are 

frightened  wretch,  and  fluttered  into  his  mansion.  The 
woman  was  then  brought  to  our  house,  which  was  at  some 
distance,  and  down  a  bleak  path  ;  and  Mr.  S.  and  her  son 
were  obliged  to  hold  her,  till  the  doctor  could  arrive.  It  ap- 
peared that  she  had  been  attending  this  son  in  London,  on  a 
criminal  charge  made  against  him,  the  agitation  of  which 
had  thrown  her  into  the  fits  on  her  return.  The  doctor  said 
that  she  would  inevitably  have  perished,  had  she  lain  there 
a  short  time  longer.  The  next  day  my  friend  sent  mother 
and  son  comfortably  home  to  Hendon,  where  they  were  well 
known,  and  whence  they  returned  him  thanks  full  of  grati- 
tude. Now  go,  ye  Pharisees  of  all  sorts,  and  try  ifj  ye  can 
still  open  your  hearts  and  your  doors  like  the  good  Samari- 
tan. This  man  was  himself  too  brought  up  in  a  splendid 
mansion,  and  might  have  revelled  and  rioted  in  all  worldly 
goods.  Yet  this  was  one  of  the  most  ordinary  of  his  actions." 


MR.  SHELLEY.  319 

apt  to  be  felt  as  so  melancholy, — where  free- 
dom of  opinion  is  so  much  cried  up,  and  the 
tribunals  take  so  much  pains  to  put  it  down, — 
where  writers  and  philosophers  in  short,  and 
what  may  be  called  the  unconstituted  autho- 
rities, have  done  ,so  much  for  all  the  world, 
and  the  constituted  authorities,  particularly 
the  lawyers,  have  done  so  little  for  any  body 
but  themselves,  * — the  reader  is  perhaps  not 

*  Always  excepting  Bacon,  who  can  hardly  be  called  a 
lawyer.  His  profession  was  but  an  accident  in  his  life.  It 
was  in  philosophy  that  he  lived  and  moved  and  had  his  being; 
and  with  it  he  has  moved  the  world.  Experiment  was  that 
standing  ground  which  Aristotle  desired  without  knowing  it, 
and  on  which  the  great  lever  has  at  last  been  fixed.  Me- 
chanical philosophy  has  not  only  moved ;  it  will  inevitably 
alter  the  world ;  and  moral  improvements,  of  all  sorts,  will 
follow.  Two  other  lawyers'  names  must  be  added  not  un- 
worthy to  follow  Bacon's ;  that  of  Mr.  Bentham,  who  had  no 
sooner  entered  the  profession,  than  he  got  out  of  it ;  and  that 
of  Henry  Brougham ;  who  though  he  remains  a  lawyer,  pre- 
sents the  singular  spectacle  of  a  lawyer,  equally  active  in 
his  lesser  calling  and  his  greater,  and  consenting,  perhaps, 
to  realize  the  gains  of  the  one,  only  that  he  may  secure  the 
power  of  pursuing  the  noblest  of  all  ambitions  in  the  other. 
Mr.  Brougham  was  "  meant  for  mankind ;"  and  luckily  he 
has  not  been  prevented  by  the  minuter  demands  on  his  eye- 
sight, from  looking  abroad  and  knowing  it.  His  world  is 


320 


MR.  SHELLEY. 


aware,  that  in  this  extraordinary  country,  any 
man's  children  may  be  taken  from  him  to-mor- 
row, who  holds  a  different  opinion  from  the 
Lord  Chancellor  in  faith  and  morals.  Hume's, 
if  he  had  any,  might  have  been  taken.  Gib- 
bon's might  have  been  taken.  The  virtuous 
Condorcet,  if  he  had  been  an  Englishman  and 
a  father,  would  have  stood  no  chance.  Plato, 
for  his  Republic,  would  have  stood  as  little ; 
and  Mademoiselle  de  Gournay  might  have 
been  torn  from  the  arms  of  her  adopted  father 
Montaigne,  convicted  beyond  redemption  of 
seeing  farther  than  the  walls  of  the  Court  of 
Chancery.  That  such  things  are  not  done 
often,  we  believe :  that  they  may  be  done 
oftener  than  people  suspect,  we  most  unfor- 
tunately believe  also ;  for  they  are  transacted 
with  closed  doors,  and  the  details  are  forbid- 
den to  transpire.  Mr.  Shelley  was  convicted 
of  holding  the  unpublished  opinions,  which 

the  world  it  ought  to  be, — the  noble  planet,  capable  of  being 
added  to  the  number  of  other  planets  which  have  perhaps 
worked  out  their  moral  beauty ; — not  a  mere  little  despair- 
ing corner  of  it,  entitled  a  court  of  justice. 


MR.  SHELLEY.  321 

his  public  teachers  at  the  University  had  not 
thought  fit  to  reason  him  out  of.  He  was 
also  charged  with  not  being  of  the  received 
opinions  with  regard  to  the  intercourse  of  the 
sexes  ;  and  his  children,  a  girl  and  a  boy,  were 
taken  from  him.  The  persons  who  succeeded 
in  bereaving  him,  did  not  succeed  in  their 
application  to  have  the  children  put  under 
their  own  management.  They  were  transferred 
to  the  care  of  an  old,  and  I  dare  say  respecta- 
ble, clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England ; 
and  have  long  received  all  the  helps  to  sin- 
cerity and  perfection,  which  Mr.  Bentham 
has  pointed  out  in  his  remarks  on  that  esta- 
blishment. The  rest  depends  on  the  natural 
strength  of  their  understandings,  and  what  re- 
flections they  may  make  when  they  compare 
their  father's  practical  Christianity  with  the 
theories  they  will  see  contradicted  all  round 
them.  The  circumstance  deeply  affected  Mr. 
Shelley  :  so  much  so,  that  he  never  afterwards 
dared  to  trust  himself  with  mentioning  his 
children  to  the  friend  who  stood  at  his  side 
throughout  the  business,  and  who  was  the 

VOL.  I.  Y 


322 


MR.  SHELLEY. 


dearest  friend  that  he  had.*  But  what  addi- 
tional love  it  generated  in  him  towards  our 
establishments,  and  their  mode  of  reasoning, 
the  reader  may  guess.  The  friend  in  question, 
who  had  first  won  his  regard  by  the  liberal 
opinions  expressed  in  the  Examiner,  and  by 
the  unusual  mode  of  advising  him  not  to 
print  a  volume  of  juvenile  poems,  (an  advice 
which  still  more  unusually  was  taken,)  has 
given,  in  that  paper,  an  interesting  account  of 
Mr.  Shelley's  manner  of  life  at  this  period.  I 
quote  from  memory,  but  am  correct  in  the 
substance.  Mr.  Shelley,  owing  to  the  freedom 
of  his  inquiries,  as  well  as  to  the  malignity 
of  his  enemies,  was  said  to  be  keeping  a  se- 
raglio. His  friend,  who  partook  of  some  of 

*  The  boy  is  since  dead ;  and  Mr.  Shelley's  son  by  his 
second  wife,  the  daughter  of  Mr.  Godwin,  is  heir  to  the  ba- 
ronetcy. It  seldom  falls  to  the  lot  of  a  child  to  have  illus- 
trious descent  so  heaped  upon  him  ;  his  mother  a  woman  of 
talents,  his  father  a  man  of  genius,  his  grandfather,  Mr.  God- 
win, a  writer  secure  of  immortality ;  his  grandmother,  Mr. 
Godwin's  wife,  the  celebrated  Mary  Wollstonecraft ;  and  on 
the  side  of  Mr.  Shelley's  ancestors  he  partakes  of  the  blood 
of  the  intellectual  as  well  as  patrician  family  of  the  Sack- 
villes. 


MR.  SIJELLEY.  323 

his  opinions,  partook  of  the  scandal.  This 
keeper  of  a  seraglio,  who  in  fact  was  extremely- 
difficult  to  please  in  such  matters,  and  who 
had  no  idea  of  love  unconnected  with  senti- 
ment, passed  his  days  like  a  hermit.  He  rose 
early  in  the  morning,  walked  and  read  before 
breakfast,  took  that  meal  sparingly,  wrote 
and  studied  the  greater  part  of  the  morning, 
walked  and  read  again,  dined  on  vegetables 
(for  he  took  neither  meat  nor  wine,)  conversed 
with  his  friends,  (to  whom  his  house  was  ever 
open,)  again  walked  out,  and  usually  finished 
with  reading  to  his  wife  till  ten  o'clock,  when 
he  went  to  bed.  This  was  his  daily  existence. 
His  book  was  generally  Plato,  or  Homer,  or 
one  of  the  Greek  tragedians,  or  the  Bible, 
in  which  last  he  took  a  great,  though  peculiar, 
and  often  admiring  interest.  One  of  his  fa- 
vourite parts  was  the  book  of  Job.  The  wri- 
tings attributed  to  Solomon  he  thought  too 
Epicurean,  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  word ; 
and  in  his  notions  of  St.  Paul,  he  agreed  with 
the  writer  of  the  work  entitled  "  Not  Paul  but 
Jesus."  For  his  Christianity,  in  the  proper 
sense  of  the  word,  he  went  to  the  gospel  of  St. 

Y  2 


324 


MR.  SHELLEY. 


James,  and  to  the  sermon  on  the  Mount  by 
Christ  himself,  for  whose  truly  divine  spirit  he 
entertained  the  greatest  reverence.  There  was 
nothing  which  embittered  his  reviewers  against 
him  more  than  the  knowledge  of  this  fact,  and 
his  refusal  to  identify  their  superstitions  and 
worldly  use  of  the  Christian  doctrines  with 
the  just  idea  of  a  great  Reformer  and  advocate 
of  the  many ;  one,  whom  they  would  have  been 
the  first  to  cry  out  against,  had  he  appeared 
now.  His  want  of  faith,  indeed,  in  one  sense 
of  the  word,  and  his  exceeding  faith  in  the  ex- 
istence of  goodness  and  the  great  doctrine  of 
charity,  formed  a  comment,  the  one  on  the 
other,  very  formidable  to  the  less  troublesome 
constructions  of  the  orthodox. 

Some  alarmists  at  Mario w  said,  that  if  he 
went  on  at  this  rate,  he  would  make  all  the 
poor  people  infidels.  He  went  on,  till  ill  health 
and  calumny,  and  the  love  of  his  children, 
forced  him  abroad.  During  his  residence  at 
Marlow,  Mr.  Shelley  published  a  "  Proposal 
for  putting  Reform  to  the  Vote"  throughout 
England ;  for  which  purpose,  as  an  earnest  of 
his  sincerity,  he  offered  to  contribute  a  hun- 


MR.  SHELLEY.  325 

dred  pounds.  This  hundred  pounds  (which 
owing  to  his  liberal  habits  he  could  very  ill 
spare  at  the  time)  he  would  have  done  his  best 
to  supply,  by  saving  and  economizing.  It  was 
not  uncommon  with  him  to  give  away  all  his 
ready  money,  and  be  compelled  to  take  a  jour- 
ney on  foot,  or  on  the  top  of  a  stage,  no  matter 
during  what  weather.  His  constitution,  though 
naturally  consumptive,  had  attained,  by  tem- 
perance and  exercise,  to  a  surprising  power  of 
resisting  fatigue.  As  an  instance  of  his  extra- 
ordinary generosity,  an  acquaintance  of  his,  a 
man  of  letters,  enjoyed  from  him  at  that  pe- 
riod a  pension  of  a  hundred  a-year ;  and  he 
continued  to  enjoy  it,  till  fortune  rendered  it 
superfluous.  But  the  princeliness  of  his  dis- 
position was  seen  most  in  his  behaviour  to  his 
friend,  the  writer  of  this  memoir,  who  is  proud 
to  relate,  that  Mr.  Shelley  once  made  him  a 
present  of  fourteen  hundred  pounds,  to  extri- 
cate him  from  debt.  I  was  not  extricated,  for 
I  had  not  yet  learnt  to  be  careful:  but  the 
shame  of  not  being  so,  after  such  generosity, 
and  the  pain  which  my  friend  afterwards  un- 
derwent when  I  was  in  trouble  and  he  was 


326  MR.  SHELLEY. 

helpless,  were  the  first  causes  of  my  thinking 
of  money-matters  to  any  purpose.  His  last 
sixpence  was  ever  at  my  service,  had  I  chosen 
to  share  it :  his  house  in  Italy  would  ever  have 
been  shared  with  me,  had  I  thought  it  right  to 
go  thither.  I  went  at  last,  with  happy  views 
for  all ;  and  of  the  three  who  set  up  a  work 
against  tyranny,  am  the  only  one  that  survive. 
It  is  remarkable,  that  in  a  poetical  epistle  writ- 
ten some  years  ago,  and  published  in  the  vo- 
lume of  "  Posthumous  Poems,"  Mr.  Shelley, 
in  alluding  to  his  friend's  circumstances,  which 
for  the  second  time  were  then  straitened,  only 
makes  an  affectionate  lamentation  that  he  him- 
self is  poor;  never  once  hinting,  that  he  had 
already  drained  his  purse  for  his  friend. 

From  Marlow,  Mr.  Shelley  went  with  his 
wife  and  a  new  family  to  Italy,  where  he  lived 
in  his  usual  quiet  and  retired  manner.  He  had 
become  acquainted  with  Lord  Byron  during 
a  former  visit  to  the  Continent;  and  the  ac- 
quaintance was  now  renewed.  He  visited  his 
Lordship  at  Venice ;  but  it  was  only  latterly 
that  he  saw  much  of  him,  when  they  both 
lived  at  Pisa.  He  had  the  highest  admiration 


MR.  SHELLEY.  327 

of  his  Lordship's  genius  ;  but  they  differed,  as 
might  be  expected,  on  many  other  points. 
Lord  Byron  thought  his  philosophy  too  spiri- 
tual and  romantic.  Mr.  Shelley  thought  his 
Lordship's  too  material  and  despairing.  The 
noble  Lord  often  expressed  the  highest  opinion 
of  his  companion's  virtues,  and  of  his  freedom 
from  selfishness.  An  account  has  been  pub- 
lished of  a  voyage  to  Sicily,  in  which  Mr.  Shel- 
ley is  described  as  behaving  with  want  of  cou- 
rage. To  those  who  knew  him,  it  is  unneces- 
sary to  repeat,  that  the  whole  account  is  a 
fabrication,  voyage  and  all.  Lord  Byron  and 
he  never  were  in  Sicily,  nor  ever  sailed  to- 
gether, except  on  the  Lake  of  Geneva.  Mr. 
Shelley's  bravery  was  remarkable,  and  was  the 
ultimate  ruin  of  him.  In  a  scuffle  that  took 
place  on  horseback,  in  the  streets  of  Pisa, 
with  a  hot-headed  dragoon,  he  behaved  with 
a  courage  so  distinguished,  and  with  so  much 
thought  for  every  body  but  himself,  that  Lord 
Byron  wondered  upon  what  principle  a  man 
could  be  induced  to  prefer  any  other  person's 
life  in  that  manner,  before  his  own.  The  so- 
lution of  the  difficulty  was  to  be  found  in  their 


MR.  SHELLEY. 

different  views  of  human  nature.  Mr.  Shelley 
would  have  lost  his  life  with  pleasure,  to  set 
an  example  of  disinterestedness :  Lord  Byron 
could  do  striking  public  things.  Greece,  and 
an  admiring  public,  still  re-echo  them.  But 
the  course  of  his  Lordship's  studies  had  led 
him  to  require,  that  they  should  be  mixed  up 
with  other  stimulants. 

A  very  melancholy  period  of  my  narrative  is 
now  arrived.  In  June  1822,  I  arrived  in  Italy, 
in  consequence  of  the  invitation  to  set  up  a 
work  with  my  friend  and  Lord  Byron.  Mr. 
Shelley  was  passing  the  summer  season  at  a 
house  he  had  taken  for  that  purpose  on  the 
Gulf  of  Lerici.  He  wrote  to  me  at  Genoa  to 
say  that  he  hoped  "  the  waves  would  never 
part  us  again ;"  and,  on  hearing  of  my  arrival 
at  Leghorn,  came  thither,  accompanied  by  Mr. 
Williams,  formerly  of  the  8th  Dragoons,  who 
was  then  on  a  visit  to  him.  He  came  to  wel- 
come his  friend  and  family,  and  see  us  com- 
fortably settled  at  Pisa.  He  accordingly  went 
with  us  to  that  city,  and  after  remaining  in  it  a 
few  days,  took  leave  on  the  night  of  the  7th 
July,  to  return  with  Mr.  Williams  to  Lerici, 


MR.  SHELLEY.  329 

meaning  to  come  back  to  us  shortly.  In  a  day 
or  two  the  voyagers  were  missed.  The  after- 
noon of  the  8th  had  been  stormy,  with  violent 
squalls  from  the  south-west.  A  night  succeed- 
ed, broken  up  with  that  tremendous  thunder 
and  lightning,  which  appals  the  stoutest  sea- 
man in  the  Mediterranean,  dropping  its  bolts 
in  all  directions,  more  like  melted  brass,  or 
liquid  pillars  of  fire,  than  any  thing  we  con- 
ceive of  lightning  in  our  northern  climate. 
The  suspense  and  anguish  of  their  friends  need 
not  be  dwelt  upon.  A  dreadful  interval  took 
place  of  more  than  a  week,  during  which  every 
inquiry  and  every  fond  hope  were  exhausted. 
At  the  end  of  that  period  our  worst  fears  were 
confirmed.  The  following  narrative  of  the 
particulars  is  from  the  pen  of  Mr.  Trelawney, 
a  friend  of  Lord  Byron's,  who  had  not  long 
been  acquainted  with  Mr.  Shelley,  but  en- 
tertained the  deepest  regard  for  him.  On 
the  present  occasion,  nothing  could  surpass 
his  generous  and  active  sympathy.  During 
the  whole  of  the  proceedings  that  took  place, 
Mr.  Shelley's  and  Mr.  Williams's  friends  were 
indebted  to  Mr.  Trelawney  for  every  kind  of 


330  MR.  SHELLEY. 

attention :  the  great  burden  of  inquiry  fell  upon 
him ;  and  he  never  ceased  his  good  offices,  either 
then  or  afterwards,  till  he  had  done  every  thing 
that  could  have  been  expected  to  be  done, 
either  of  the  humblest  or  the  highest  friend. 

MR.  TRELAWNEY'S  NARRATIVE  OF  THE  LOSS 
OF  THE  BOAT  CONTAINING  MR.  SHELLEY 
AND  MR.  WILLIAMS,  ON  THE  8TH  OF  JULY, 
1822,  OFF  THE  COAST  OF  ITALY.  (NOW 
FIRST  PUBLISHED.) 

"Mr  Shelley,  Mr.  Williams  (formerly  of  the 
8th  Dragoons),  and  one  seaman,  Charles  Vivian, 
left  Villa  Magni  near  Lerici,  a  small  town  situ- 
ate in  the  Bay  of  Spezia,  on  the  30th  of  June, 
at  twelve  o'clock,  and  arrived  the  same  night 
at  Leghorn.  Their  boat  had  been  built  for 
Mr.  Shelley  at  Genoa  by  a  captain  in  the  navy. 
It  was  twenty-four  feet  long,  eight  in  the  beam, 
schooner-rigged,  with  gaft  topsails,  &c.  and 
drew  four  feet  water.  On  Monday,  the  8th  of 
July,  at  the  same  hour,  they  got  under  weigh 
to  return  home,  having  on  board  a  quantity  of 
household  articles,  four  hundred  dollars,  a  small 
canoe,  and  some  books  and  manuscripts.  At 


MR.  SHELLEY.  331 

half  past  twelve  they  made  all  sail  out  of  the 
harbour  with  a  light  and  favourable  breeze, 
steering  direct  for  Spezia.  I  had  likewise 
weighed  anchor  to  accompany  them  a  few  miles 
out  in  Lord  Byron's  schooner,  the  Bolivar; 
but  there  was  some  demur  about  papers  from 
the  guard-boat ;  and  they,  fearful  of  losing  the 
breeze,  sailed  without  me.  I  re-anchored,  and 
watched  my  friends,  till  their  boat  became  a 
speck  on  the  horizon,  which  was  growing  thick 
and  dark,  with  heavy  clouds  moving  rapidly, 
and  gathering  in  the  south-west  quarter.  I 
then  retired  to  the  cabin,  where  I  had  not  been 
half  an  hour,  before  a  man  on  deck  told  me,  a 
heavy  squall  had  come  on.  We  let  go  another 
anchor.  The  boats  and  vessels  in  the  roads 
were  scudding  past  us  in  all  directions  to  get 
into  the  harbour ;  and  in  a  moment  it  blew  a 
hard  gale  from  the  south-west,  the  sea,  from 
excessive  smoothness,  foaming,  breaking,  and 
getting  up  into  a  very  heavy  swell.  The 
wind,  having  shifted,  was  now  directly  against 
my  friends.  I  felt  confident  they  would  be 
obliged  to  bear  off  for  Leghorn  ;  and,  being 
anxious  to  hear  of  their  safety,  stayed  on  board 


332 


MR.  SHELLEY. 


till  a  late  hour,   but   saw  nothing  of  them. 
The  violence  of  the  wind  did  not   continue 
above  an  hour ;    it  then  gradually  subsided ; 
and  at  eight  o'clock,  when  I  went  on  shore,  it 
was  almost  a  calm.     It,  however,  blew  hard  at 
intervals  during  the  night,  with  rain,  and  thun- 
der and  lightning.     The  lightning  struck  the 
mast  of  a  vessel   close  to  us,  shivering  it  to 
splinters,    killing    two    men,    and    wounding 
others.      From  these  circumstances,  becoming 
greatly  alarmed  for  the  safety  of  the  voyagers, 
a  note  was  dispatched  to  Mr.  Shelley's  house 
at  Lerici,  the  reply  to  which  stated  that  no- 
thing had  been  heard  of  him  and  his  friend, 
which  augmented  our  fears  to  such  a  degree, 
that   couriers    were  dispatched  on   the   whole 
line  of  coast  from  Leghorn  to  Nice,  to  ascer- 
tain if  they  had  put  in  any  where,  or  if  there 
had  been   any    wreck,   or  indication  of  losses 
by  sea.     I  immediately  started  for  Via  Reggio, 
having  lost  sight  of  the  boat  in  that  direction. 
My  worst  fears  were  almost  confirmed  on  my 
arrival  there,  by  news  that  a  small  canoe,  two 
empty  water-barrels,  and   a   bottle,   had   been 
found  on  the  shore,  which  things  I  recognised 
as  belonging  to  the  boat.     I  had  still,  however, 


MR.  SHELLEY.  333 

warm  hopes  that  these  articles  had  been  thrown 
overboard   to  clear  them  from  useless  lumber 
in  the  storm  ;   and  it  seemed   a  general   opi- 
nion that  they  had  missed  Leghorn,  and  put 
into   Elba  or   Corsica,   as   nothing   more   was 
heard  for  eight  days.     This  state  of  suspense 
becoming  intolerable,  I  returned  from  Spezia 
to  Via   Reggio,  where   my  worst   fears  were 
confirmed  by  the  information  that  two  bodies 
had  been  washed  on  shore,  one  on  that  night 
very  near  the  town,  which,  by  the  dress  and 
stature,   I   knew   to  be    Mr.    Shelley's.     Mr. 
Keats's  last  volume   of  "  Lamia,"  "  Isabella," 
&c.  being  open  in  the  jacket  pocket,  confirmed 
it  beyond  a   doubt.     The  body  of  Mr.  Wil- 
liams  was   subsequently  found  near  a  tower 
on   the   Tuscan  shore,  about  four  miles  from 
his  companion.     Both  the  bodies  were  greatly 
decomposed  by  the  sea,  but  identified  beyond 
a   doubt.     The   seaman,    Charles   Vivian,  was 
not  found  for  nearly  three  weeks  afterwards. 
His  body  was  interred  in  the  spot  on  which 
a  wave  had  washed  it,  in  the  vicinity  of  Massa. 
"  After  a  variety  of  applications  to  the  Luc- 
chese  and  Tuscan  Governments,  and  our  Am- 
bassador at   Florence,    I    obtained,   from    the 


334 


MR.  SHELLEY. 


kindness  and  exertions   of  Mr.  Dawkins,   an 
order   to   the   officer   commanding   the    tower 
of    Migliarino,     (near    to    which    Lieutenant 
Williams  had   been   cast,   and   buried   in   the 
sand,)   that   the   body  should  be   at   my   dis- 
posal.     I   likewise  obtained   an  order   to  the 
same  effect  to  the  Commandant  at  Via  Reg- 
gio,  to  deliver  up  the  remains  of  Mr.  Shel- 
ley, it  having  been  decided  by  the  friends  of 
the  parties  that  the  bodies  should  be  reduced 
to    ashes   by  fire,    as     the   readiest  mode   of 
conveying  them  to  the  places  where  the  de- 
ceased would  have  wished  to  repose,  as  well  as 
of  removing  all  objections  respecting  the  Qua- 
rantine Laws,  which  had  been  urged  against 
their   disinterment.     Every   thing  being  pre- 
pared for  the  requisite  purposes,  I  embarked  on 
board  Lord  Byron's  schooner  with  my  friend 
Captain  Shenley,   and   sailed   on   the  13th  of 
August.     After   a   tedious   passage  of  eleven 
hours,  we  anchored  off  Via  Reggio,  and  fell  in 
with  two  small  vessels,  which  I  had  hired  at 
Leghorn  some  days  before  for  the  purpose  of 
ascertaining,   by   the  means  used   to  recover 
sunken  vessels,  the  place  in  which  my  friend's 


MR.  SHELLEY.  335 

boat  had  foundered.  They  had  on  board  the 
captain  of  a  fishing-boat,  who,  having  been 
overtaken  in  the  same  squall,  had  witnessed 
the  sinking  of  the  boat,  without  (as  he  says) 
the  possibility  of  assisting  her.  After  dragging 
the  bottom,  in  the  place  which  he  indicated, 
for  six  days  without  finding  her,  I  sent  them 
back  to  Leghorn,  and  went  on  shore.  The 
Major  commanding  the  town,  with  the  Captain 
of  the  port,  accompanied  me  to  the  Governor. 
He  received  us  very  courteously,  and  did  not 
object  to  the  removal  of  our  friend's  remains, 
but  to  burning  them,  as  the  latter  was  not  spe- 
cified in  the  order.  However,  after  some  little 
explanation,  he  assented,  and  we  gave  the  ne- 
cessary directions  for  making  every  prepara- 
tion to  commence  our  painful  undertaking 
next  morning." 

It  was  thought  that  the  whole  of  these  melan- 
choly operations  might  have  been  performed  in 
one  day :  but  the  calculation  turned  out  to  be 
erroneous.  Mr.  Williams's  remains  were  com- 
menced with.  Mr.  Trelawney  and  Captain 
Shenley  were  at  the  Tower  by  noon,  with  pro- 
per persons  to  assist,  and  were  joined  shortly 


MR.  SHELLEY. 

by  Lord  Byron  and  myself.  A  portable  fur- 
nace and  a  tent  had  been  prepared.  "  Wood," 
continues  Mr.  Trelawney,  "  we  found  in  abund- 
ance on  the  beach,  old  trees  and  parts  of  wrecks. 
Within  a  few  paces  of  the  spot  where  the  body 
lay,  there  was  a  rude-built  shed  of  straw,  form- 
ing a  temporary  shelter  for  soldiers  at  night, 
when  performing  the  coast-patrole  duty.  The 
grave  was  at  high- water  mark,  some  eighteen 
paces  from  the  surf,  as  it  was  then  breaking, 
the  distance  about  four  miles  and  a  half  from 
Via  Reggio.  The  magnificent  bay  of  Spezia 
is  on  the  right  of  this  spot,  Leghorn  on  the 
left,  at  equal  distances  of  about  twenty-two 
miles.  The  headlands,  projecting  boldly  and 
far  into  the  sea,  form  a  deep  and  dangerous 
gulf,  with  a  heavy  swell  and  a  strong  current 
generally  running  right  into  it.  A  vessel  em- 
bayed in  this  gulf,  and  overtaken  by  one  of 
the  squalls  so  common  upon  the  coast  of  it,  is 
almost  certain  to  be  wrecked.  The  loss  of 
small  craft  is  great ;  and  the  shallowness  of  the 
water,  and  breaking  of  the  surf,  preventing  ap- 
proach to  the  shore,  or  boats  going  out  to  assist, 
the  loss  of  lives  is  in  proportion.  It  was  in  the 


MR.  SHELLEY.  337 

centre  of  this  bay,  about  four  or  five  miles  at 
sea,  in  fifteen  or  sixteen  fathom  water,  with  a 
light  breeze  under  a  crowd  of  sail,  that  the 
boat  of  our  friends  was  suddenly  taken  clap 
aback  by  a  sudden  and  very  violent  squall ; 
and  it  is  supposed  that  in  attempting  to  bear 
up  under  such  a  press  of  canvass,  all  the  sheets 
fast,  the  hands  unprepared,  and  only  three  per- 
sons on  board,  the  boat  filled  to  leeward,  and 
having  two  tons  of  ballast,  and  not  being  deck- 
ed, went  down  on  the  instant ;  not  giving 

% 

them  a  moment  to  prepare  themselves  by  even 
taking  off  their  boots,  or  seizing  an  oar.  Mr. 
Williams  was  the  only  one  who  could  swim, 
and  he  but  indifferently.  The  spot  where  Mr. 
Williams's  body  lay  was  well  adapted  for  a 
man  of  his  imaginative  cast  of  mind,  and  I 
wished  his  remains  to  rest  undisturbed ;  but 
it  was  willed  otherwise.  Before  us  was  the 
sea,  with  islands ;  behind  us  the  Apennines ; 
beside  us,  a  large  tract  of  thick  wood,  stunted 
and  twisted  into  fantastic  shapes  by  the  sea- 
breeze.  The  heat  was  intense,  the  sand  being 
so  scorched  as  to  render  standing  on  it  painful." 

Mr.  Trelawney  proceeds  to  describe  the  dis- 

VOL.  i.  z 


338  MR.  SHELLEY. 

interment  and  burning  of  Mr.  Williams's  re- 
mains. Calumny,  which  never  shows  itself 
grosser  than  in  its  charges  of  want  of  refine- 
ment, did  not  spare  even  these  melancholy  ce- 
remonies. The  friends  of  the  deceased,  though 
they  took  no  pains  to  publish  the  proceeding, 
were  accused  of  wishing  to  make  a  sensation ; 
of  doing  a  horrible  and  unfeeling  thing,  &c. 
The  truth  was,  that  the  nearest  connexions, 
both  of  Mr.  Shelley  and  Mr.  Williams,  wished 
to  have  their  remains  interred  in  regular  places 
of  burial ;  and  that  for  this  purpose  they  could 
be  removed  in  no  other  manner.  Such  being 
the  case,  it  is  admitted  that  the  mourners  did 
not  refuse  themselves  the  little  comfort  of  sup- 
posing, that  lovers  of  books  and  antiquity,  like 
Mr.  Shelley  and  his  friend,  would  not  have 
been  sorry  to  foresee  this  part  of  their  fate. 
Among  the  materials  for  burning,  as  many  of 
the  gracefuller  and  more  classical  articles  as 
could  be  procured — frankincense,  wine,  &c. 
were  not  forgotten. 

The  proceedings  of  the  next  day,  with  Mr. 
Shelley's  remains,  exactly  resembled  those  of 
the  foregoing,  with  the  exception  of  there 


MR.  SHELLEY.  339 

being  two  assistants  less.  The  inaccuracies  of 
Captain  Medwin  on  this  subject  I  have  noticed 
before.  On  both  days,  the  extraordinary  beauty 
of  the  flame  arising  from  the  funeral  pile  was 
noticed.  The  weather  was  beautifully  fine. 
The  Mediterranean,  now  soft  and  lucid,  kissed 
the  shore  as  if  to  make  peace  with  it.  The 
yellow  sand  and  blue  sky  intensely  contrasted 
with  one  another :  marble  mountains  touched 
the  air  with  coolness,  and  the  flame  of  the  fire 
bore  away  towards  heaven  in  vigorous  ampli- 
tude, waving  and  quivering  with  a  brightness 
of  inconceivable  beauty.  It  seemed  as  though 
it  contained  the  glassy  essence  of  vitality. 
You  might  have  expected  a  seraphic  counte- 
nance to  look  out  of  it,  turning  once  more, 
before  it  departed,  to  thank  the  friends  that 
had  done  their  duty. 

Among  the  various  conjectures  respecting 
this  lamentable  event,  a  suspicion  was  not 
wanting,  that  the  boat  had  been  run  down  by 
a  larger  one,  with  a  view  to  plunder  it.  Mr. 
Shelley  was  known  to  have  taken  money  on 
board.  Crimes  of  that  nature  had  occurred 
often  enough  to  warrant  such  a  suspicion ;  and 

z  2 


340  MR.  SHELLEY. 

they  could  be  too  soon  washed  out  of  the  con- 
sciences of  the  ignorant  perpetrators  by  con- 
fession. But  it  was  lost  in  the  more  proba- 
ble conclusions  arising  from  the  weather.  One 
bitter  consolation  to  the  friends  of  Mr.  Shel- 
ley was,  that  his  death,  as  far  as  he  alone  was 
concerned,  was  of  a  nature  he  would  have 
preferred  to  many  others,  probably  to  any.  A 
reflection,  more  pleasing,  reminded  them,  that 
in  the  rapid  decomposition  occasioned  by  the 
sea  and  the  fire,  the  mortal  part  of  him  was 
saved  from  that  gradual  corruption,  which  is 
seldom  contemplated  without  shuddering  by  a 
lively  imagination.  And  yet  the  same  imagi- 
nation and  suffering  which  make  us  cling  to 
life  at  one  time,  and  give  us  a  horror  of  dis- 
solution, can  render  the  grave  desirable  and 
even  beautiful  at  another.  Mr.  Shelley's  re- 
mains were  taken  to  Rome,  and  deposited  in 
the  Protestant  burial-ground,  near  those  of  a 
child  he  had  lost  in  that  city,  and  of  Mr. 
Keats.  It  is  the  cemetery  he  speaks  of  in  the 
preface  to  his  Elegy  on  the  death  of  his  young 
friend,  as  calculated  to  "  make  one  in  love  with 
death,  to  think  that  one  should  be  buried  in 


Mil.  SHELLEY.  341 

so  sweet  a  place."  A  like  tenderness  of  pa- 
tience, in  one  who  possessed  a  like  energy, 
made  Mr.  Keats  say  on  his  death-bed,  that 
he  "  seemed  to  feel  the  daisies  growing  over 
him."  These  are  the  feelings  that  servile  critics 
ridicule,  and  that  all  other  human  beings  re- 
spect. The  generous  reader  will  be  glad  to 
hear,  that  the  remains  of  Mr.  Shelley  were  at- 
tended to  their  final  abode  by  some  of  the 
most  respectable  English  residents  in  Rome. 
He  was  sure  to  awaken  the  sympathy  of  gal- 
lant and  accomplished  spirits  wherever  he  went, 
alive  or  dead.  The  remains  of  Mr.  Williams 
were  taken  to  England.  Mr.  Williams  was  a 
very  intelligent,  good-hearted  man,  and  his 
death  was  deplored  by  friends  worthy  of  him. 

The  writer  who  criticised  the  "  Posthumous 
Poems,"  in  the  "  Edinburgh  Review,"  does 
justice  to  the  excellence  of  Mr.  Shelley's  inten- 
tions, and  acknowledges  him  to  be  one  of  those 
rare  persons  called  men  of  genius  ;  but  accuses 
him  of  a  number  of  faults,  which  he  attributes 
to  the  predominance  of  his  will,  and  a  scorn  of 
every  thing  received  and  conventional.  To 
this  cause  he  traces  the  faults  of  his  poetry. 


MR.  SHELLEY. 

and  what  he  conceives  to  be  the  errors  of  his 
philosophy.  Furthermore,  he  charges  Mr. 
Shelley  with  a  want  of  reverence  for  antiquity, 
and  quotes  a  celebrated  but  not  unequivocal 
passage  from  Bacon,  where  the  Philosopher, 
according  to  the  advice  of  the  Prophet,  recom- 
mends us  to  take  our  stand  upon  the  ancient 
ways,  and  see  what  road  we  are  to  take  for 
progression.  He  says  Mr.  Shelley  had  "  too 
little  sympathy  with  the  feelings  of  others, 
which  he  thought  he  had  a  right  to  sacrifice, 
as  well  as  his  own,  to  a  grand  ethical  experi- 
ment ;  and  asserts  that  if  a  thing  were  old  and 
established,  this  was  with  him  a  certain  proof 
of  its  having  no  solid  foundation  to  rest  upon  : 
if  it  was  new,  it  was  good  and  right :  every 
paradox  was  to  him  a  self-evident  truth  ;  every 
prejudice  an  undoubted  absurdity.  The  weight 
of  authority,  the  sanction  of  ages,  the  common 
consent  of  mankind,  were  vouchers  only  for 
ignorance,  error,  and  imposture.  Whatever 
shocked  the  feelings  of  others,  conciliated  his 
regard;  whatever  was  light,  extravagant,  and 
vain,  was  to  him  a  proportionable  relief  from 
the  dulness  and  stupidity  of  established  opi- 


MK.  SHELLEY.  343 

nions."     This  is  caricature;    and  caricature  of 
an  imaginary  original. 

Alas !  Mr.  Shelley  was  so  little  relieved  by 
what  was  light  and  vain,  (if  I  understand  what 
the  Reviewer  means  by  those  epithets,)  and 
so  little  disposed  to  quarrel  with  the  common 
consent  of  mankind,  where  it  seemed  reasonably 
founded,  that,  at  first,  he  could  not  endure  even 
the  comic  parts  of  Lord  Byron's  writings,  be- 
cause he  thought  they  tended  to  produce  mere 
volatility  instead  of  good ;  and  he  afterwards 
came  to  relish  them,  because  he  found  an  ac- 
cord with  them  in  the  bosoms  of  society. 
Whatever  shocked  the  feeling  of  others  so 
little  conciliated  his  regard,  that  with  the  sole 
exception  of  matters  of  religion  (which  is  a 
point  on  which  the  most  benevolent  Reformers, 
authors  of  "  grand  ethical  experiments,"  in  all 
ages,  have  thought  themselves  warranted  in 
hazarding  alarm  and  astonishment,)  his  own 
feelings  were  never  more  violated  than  by  dis- 
turbances given  to  delicacy,  to  sentiment,  to 
the  affections.  If  ever  it  seemed  otherwise, 
as  in  the  subject  of  his  tragedy  of  the  Cenci, 
it  was  only  out  of  a  more  intense  apprehensive- 


344  Mil.  SHELLEY. 

ness,  and  the  right  it  gave  him  to  speak.     He 
saw,   in   every  species  of  tyranny  and   selfish 
will,  an  image  of  all  the  rest  of  the  generation. 
That  a  love  of  paradox  is  occasionally  of  use 
to  remind  commonplaces  of  their  weakness,  and 
to  prepare  the  way  for  liberal  opinions,  nobody 
knows  better  or  has  more  unequivocally  shown 
than  Mr.  Shelley's  critic;    and  yet  I   am  not 
aware  that  Mr.  Shelley  was  at  all  addicted  to 
paradox;  or  that  he  loved  any  contradiction,  that 
did  not  directly  contradict  some  great  and  tyran- 
nical abuse.     Prejudices  that  he  thought  inno- 
cent, no  man  was  more  inclined  to  respect,  or  even 
to  fall  in  with.     He  was  prejudiced  in  favour 
of  the  dead  languages ;    he  had  a  theoretical 
antipathy  to  innovations  in  style;  he  had  al- 
most an  English  dislike  of  the  French  and  their 
literature,  a  philosopher  or   two  excepted:  it 
cost  him  much  to  reconcile  himself  to  manners 
that  were  not  refined  ;  and  even  with  regard  to 
the  prejudices  of  superstition,  or  the  more  poe- 
tical sides  of  popular  faith,  where  they  did  not 
interfere  with  the  daily  and  waking  comforts 
of  mankind,  he  was  for  admitting  them  with 
more  than  a  spirit  of  toleration.     It  would  be 


MR.  SHELLEY.  345 

hazardous  to  affirm  that  he  did  not  believe  in 
spirits  and  genii.  This  is  not  setting  his  face 
against  "  every  received  mystery,  and  all  tra- 
ditional faith."  He  set  his  face,  not  against 
a  mystery  nor  a  self-evident  proposition,  but 
against  whatever  he  conceived  to  be  injurious 
to  human  good,  and  whatever  his  teachers 
would  have  forced  down  his  throat,  in  defiance 
of  the  inquiries  they  had  suggested.  His  op- 
position to  what  was  established,  as  I  have 
said  before,  is  always  to  be  considered  with  re- 
ference to  that  feature  in  his  disposition,  and 
that  fact  in  his  history.  Of  antiquity  and  au- 
thority he  was  so  little  a  scorner,  that  his  opi- 
nions, novel  as  some  of  them  may  be  thought, 
are  all  to  be  found  in  writers,  both  ancient  and 
modern,  and  those  not  obscure  ones  or  empi- 
rical, but  men  of  the  greatest,  and  wisest,  and 
best  names, — Plato  and  Epicurus,  Montaigne, 
Bacon,  Sir  Thomas  More.  Nothing  in  him 
was  his  own,  but  the  genius  that  impelled  him 
to  put  philosophical  speculations  in  the  shape 
of  poetry,  and  a  subtle  and  magnificent  style, 
abounding  in  Hellenisms,  and  by  no  means 
exempt  (as  he  acknowledged)  from  a  tendency 


346  SIR.  SHELLEY. 

to  imitate  whatever  else  he  thought  beautiful, 
in  ancient  or  modern  writers. 

But  Mr.  Shelley  was  certainly  definite  in  his 
object :  he  thought  it  was  high  time  for  society 
to  come  to  particulars :  to  know  what  they 
would  have.  With  regard  to  marriage  for  in- 
stance, he  was  tired  with  the  spectacle  conti- 
nually presented  to  his  eyes,  of  a  community 
always  feeling  sore  upon  that  point,  and  cowed, 
like  a  man  by  his  wife,  from  attempting  some 
real  improvement  in  it.  There  was  no  end,  he 
thought,  of  setting  up  this  new  power,  and 
pulling  down  that,  if  the  one,  to  all  real  home 
purposes,  proceeded  just  as  the  other  did,  and 
nothing  was  gained  to  society  but  a  hope  and 
a  disappointment.  This,  in  his  opinion,  was 
not  the  kind  of  will  to  be  desired,  in  opposi- 
tion to  one  with  more  definite  objects.  We 
must  not,  he  thought,  be  eternally  generaliz- 
ing, shilly-shallying,  and  coqueting  between 
public  submission  and  private  independence ; 
but  let  a  generous  understanding  and  acknow- 
ledgment of  what  we  are  in  want  of,  go  hand 
in  hand  with  our  exertions  in  behalf  of  change; 
otherwise,  when  we  arrive  at  success,  we  shall 


MR.  SHELLEY.  34? 

find  success  itself  in  hands  that  are  but  physi- 
cally triumphant — hands  that  hold  up  a  vic- 
tory on  a  globe,  a  splendid  commonplace,  as  a 
new  old  thing  for  us  to  worship.  This,  to  be 
sure,  is  standing  super  vias  antiquas ;  but  not 
in  order  to  "  make  progression."  The  thing  is 
all  to  be  done  over  again.  If  there  is  "  some- 
thing rotten  in  the  state  of  Denmark,"  let  us 
mend  it,  and  not  set  up  Sweden  or  Norway, 
to  knock  down  this  rottenness  with  rottenness 
of  their  own ;  continually  waiting  for  others 
to  do  our  work,  and  finding  them  do  it  in  such 
a  manner,  as  to  deliver  us  bound  again  into  the 
hands  of  the  old  corruptions.  We  must  be  our 
own  deliverers.  An  Essay  on  the  Disinterest- 
edness of  Human  Action  is  much ;  but  twenty 
articles  to  show  that  the  most  disinterested  per- 
son in  the  world  is  only  a  malcontent  and  a 
fanatic,  can  be  of  no  service  but  to  baffle  con- 
duct and  resolution,  in  favour  of  eternal  theory 
and  the  talking  about  it. 

Mr.  Shelley  had  no  doubt  a  great  deal  of 
will ;  but  the  mistake  of  the  Reviewer  lies  in 
giving  it  an  antipathetical,  instead  of  a  sympa- 
thetic character.  This  may  be  the  fault  of 


348  Mil.  SHELLEY. 

some  reformers.  It  may  also  be  a  fault  of 
others  to  lament  the  want  of  will  in  their  bre- 
thren at  one  time,  and  the  excess  of  it  at  ano- 
ther, but  particularly  the  want ;  satirizing  the 
sparing  and  fastidious  conduct  of  the  better 
part  of  the  lovers  of  freedom,  "  the  inconsis- 
tent, vacillating  good,"  and  bewailing  the  long 
misfortunes  of  the  world,  which  a  few  ener- 
getic persons  might  put  an  end  to  by  a  reso- 
lute and  unconditional  exercise  of  their  free 
agency.  The  writer  in  question  is  not  exempt 
from  these  inconsistencies.  I  do  not  accuse 
him  of  want  of  sympathy.  On  the  contrary, 
I  think  the  antipathies  which  he  has  some- 
times given  way  to  so  strangely,  and  the  will 
which  he  at  other  times  recommends,  and  at 
all  times  sets  an  example  of,  arise  out  of  the 
impatience  of  his  very  sympathy  with  man- 
kind. This  it  is,  which  together  with  his  own 
extraordinary  amount  of  talent,  and  the  in- 
teresting evidences  of  it  which  continually  ap- 
pear, has  for  so  long  a  time  kept  his  friends 
in  good  blood  with  him,  whatever  mood  he 
has  happened  to  be  in;  though  he  has  tried 
them,  of  late,  pretty  hard.  But  this  it  is 


MR.  SHELLEY.  349 

also  which  ought  to  have  led  him  into  a 
different  judgment  with  regard  to  Mr.  Shel- 
ley. A  greater  portion  of  will  among  refor- 
mers is  desirable ;  but  it  does  not  follow  that 
an  occasional  excess  of  it  (if  such)  can  or 
does  do  the  mischief  he  supposes,  or  furnishes 
any  excuse  worth  mention  for  the  outcries  and 
pretended  arguments  of  the  opposite  party. 
If  he  will  have  a  good  deal  of  will,  he  must 
occasionally  have  an  excess  of  it.  The  party 
in  question,  that  is  to  say,  all  the  bad  systems 
and  governments  existing,  with  all  their  slaves 
and  dependents,  have  an  infinite  will  of  their 
own,  which  they  already  make  use  of,  with 
all  their  might,  to  put  down  every  endeavour 
against  it :  and  the  world  in  general  is  so 
deafened  with  the  noise  of  ordinary  things, 
and  the  great  working  of  the  system  which 
abuses  it,  that  an  occasional  excess  in  the  lift- 
ing up  of  a  reforming  voice  appears  to  be 
necessary  to  make  it  listen.  It  requires  the 
example  of  a  spirit  not  so  prostrate  as  its  own, 
to  make  it  believe  that  all  hearts  are  not  alike 
kept  under,  and  that  the  hope  of  reformation 
is  not  every  where  given  up.  This  is  the 


350  MR.  SHELLEY. 

excuse  for  such  productions  as  Werter,  the 
Stranger,  and  other  appeals  to  the  first  princi- 
ples of  sympathy  and  disinterestedness.  This  is 
the  excuse  for  the  paradoxes  of  Rousseau ;  for 
the  extravagances  of  some  of  the  Grecian  phi- 
losophers (which  were  necessary  to  call  the  at- 
tention to  all  parts  of  a  question) ;  and  if  I 
did  not  wish  to  avoid  hazarding  misconception, 
and  hurting  the  feelings,  however  unreasonably, 
of  any  respectable  body  of  men,  I  might  add 
stronger  cases  in  point ;  cases,  in  which  prin- 
ciples have  been  pushed  to  their  greatest  and 
most  impracticable  excess,  for  the  purpose,  we 
are  told,  of  securing  some  attention  to  the 
reasonable  part  of  them.  Mr.  Shelley  objected 
to  the  present  state  of  the  intercourse  of  the 
sexes,  and  the  vulgar  notions  of  the  Supreme 
Being.  He  also  held  with  Sir  Thomas  More, 
that  a  community  of  property  was  desirable ; 
an  opinion,  which  obtained  him  more  ill-will, 
perhaps,  than  any  other,  at  least  in  the  class 
among  which  he  was  born.  The  Reviewer 
implies,  that  he  put  forth  some  of  these  ob- 
jections alarmingly  or  extravagantly.  Be  it  so. 
The  great  point  is  to  have  a  question  discussed. 


MR.  SHELLEY.  351 

The  advocates  of  existing  systems  of  all  sorts 
are  strong  enough  to  look  to  the  defence ; 
whereas,  those  who  suffer  by  them  are  so  much 
intimidated  by  their  very  sufferings,  as  4to  be 
afraid  to  move,  lest  they  should  be  worse  off 
than  they  are  at  present.  They  do  not  want 
to  know  their  calamity  ;  they  know  it  well 
enough.  They  require  to  be  roused,  and  not 
always  to  sit  groaning  over,  or  making  de- 
spairing jests  of  their  condition.  If  a  friend's 
excess  excites  them  to  differ  with  him,  they 
are  still  incited  to  look  at  the  question.  His 
sympathy  moves  them  to  be  ashamed  of  their 
passiveness,  and  to  consider  what  may  be  done. 
We  need  not  fear,  that  it  will  be  too  much. 
At  the  very  least,  matters  will  find  their  level. 
If  we  are  our  own  masters  under  Providence ; 
if  Nature  works  with  us  for  tools,  and  intends 
amelioration  through  the  means  of  our  know- 
ledge, we  are  roused  to  some  purpose.  If  not, 
or  if  we  are  to  go  so  far  and  no  farther,  no 
farther  shall  we  go.  The  sweet  or  bitter  waters 
of  humanity  will  assuredly  find  where  to  settle. 
The  Reviewer,  still  acknowledging  the  ge- 
nius of  Mr.  Shelley,  and  his  benevolent  inten- 


352  MK.  SHELLEY. 

tions,  finds  the  same  fault  with  his  poetry  as 
with  his  philosophy,  and  traces  it  to  the  same 
causes.     Of  all  my  friend's  writings,  the  poeti- 
cal p&rts  are  those  which  I  should  least  conceive 
to  subject  him  to  the  charge  of  want  of  sympa- 
thy.    Is  the  quarrelling  with  constituted  autho- 
rities and  received  calamities,  the  same  thing  as 
scorning  the  better  part  of  what  exists  ?    Is  the 
quitting  the  real  world  for  the  ideal  in  search 
of  consolation,  the  same  thing  as  thrusting  one's 
foot  against  it  in  contempt,  and  flying  off  on 
the  wings  of  antipathy?     And  what  did  Mr. 
Shelley  carry  thither  when  he  went  ?    A  per- 
petual consciousness  of  his  humanity ;  a  cling- 
ing load  of  the  miseries  of  his  fellow-creatures. 
The  Witch  of  Atlas,  for  example,  is  but  a  per- 
sonification of  the  imaginative  faculty  in  its 
most  airy  abstractions;  and  yet  the  author  can- 
not indulge  himself  long  in  that  fairy  region, 
without  dreaming  of  mortal   strife.     If  he  is 
not  in  this  world,  he  must  have  visions  of  it. 
If  fiction  is  his  reality  by  day,  reality  will  be 
his  fiction  during  his  slumbers.     The  truth  is, 
Mr.  Shelley  was  in  his  whole  being,  mental  and 
physical,  of  an  extreme  delicacy  and  sensibili- 


MR.  SHELLEY.  353 

iy.  He  felt  every  part  of  his  nature  intensely; 
and  his  impulse,  object,  and  use  in  this  world, 
was  to  remind  others  of  some  important  points 
touching  our  common  nature  and  endeavours, 
by  affording  a  more  than  ordinary  example  of 
their  effect  upon  himself.  It  may  be  asked, 
who  are  to  be  reminded?  how  many?  To 
which  we  answer,  those  who  have  been  re- 
minded already,  as  well  as  the  select  portion 
who  remain  to  be  so;  never  mind  how  few, 
provided  they  are  reminded  to  some  purpose. 
Mr.  Shelley's  writings,  it  is  admitted,  are  not 
calculated  to  be  popular,  however  popular  in 
their  ultimate  tendency,  or  cordial  in  their 
origin.  They  are,  for  the  most  part,  too  ab- 
stract and  refined.  But  "  fit  audience  though 
few,"  is  the  motto  of  the  noblest  ambition  ;  and 
it  is  these  audiences  that  go  and  settle  the  world. 

Mr.  Shelley's  poetry  is  invested  with  a  daz- 
zling and  subtle  radiance,  which  blinds  the  com- 
mon observer  with  light.  Piercing  beyond 
this,  we  discover  that  the  characteristics  of 
his  poetical  writings  are  an  exceeding  sym- 
pathy with  the  whole  universe,  material  and 
intellectual ;  an  ardent  desire  to  benefit  his 

VOL.  i.  2  A 


354  MR.  SHELLEY. 

species ;  an  impatience  of  the  tyrannies  and 
superstitions  that  hold  them  bound;  and  a 
regret  that  the  power  of  one  loving  and  en- 
thusiastic individual  is  not  proportioned  to  his 
will,  nor  his  good  reception  with  the  world 
at  all  proportioned  to  his  love.  His  poetry 
is  either  made  up  of  all  these  feelings  united, 
or  is  an  attempt  to  escape  from  their  pressure 
into  the  widest  fields  of  imagination.  I  say 
an  attempt, — because,  as  we  have  seen,  escape 
he  does  not ;  and  it  is  curious  to  observe  how 
he  goes  pouring  forth  his  baffled  affections 
upon  every  object  he  can  think  of,  bringing 
out  its  beauties  and  pretensions  by  the  light 
of  a  radiant  fancy,  and  resolved  to  do  the 
whole  detail  of  the  universe  a  sort  of  poetical 
justice,  in  default  of  being  able  to  make  his 
fellow-creatures  attend  to  justice  political. 
From  this  arises  the  fault  of  his  poetry,  which 
is  a  want  of  massiveness, — of  a  proper  distri- 
bution of  light  and  shade.  The  whole  is  too 
full  of  glittering  points ;  of  images  touched 
and  illustrated  alike,  and  brought  out  into 
the  same  prominence.  He  ransacks  every 
thing  like  a  bee,  grappling  with  it  in  the  same 


MB.  SHELLEY.  355 

spirit  of  penetration  and  enjoyment,  till  you 
lose  sight  of  the  field  he  entered  upon,  in  fol- 
lowing him  into  his  subtle  recesses.      He  is 
also  too  fond,  in  his  larger  works,  of  repeating 
the  same  images  drawn  from  the  material  uni- 
verse and  the  sea.     When  he  is   obliged  to 
give  up  these  peculiarities,  and  to  identify  his 
feelings   and  experience   with   those  of  other 
people,  as  in  his  dramatic  poems,  the  fault  no 
longer  exists.      His   object  remains, — that  of 
increasing  the  wisdom  and  happiness  of  man- 
kind :  but   he  has  laid   aside  his  wings,  and 
added  to  the  weight  and  purpose  of  his  body  ; 
the  spiritual  part  of  him  is  invested  with  or- 
dinary  flesh   and   blood.     In   truth,   for   ordi- 
nary or  immediate  purposes,  a  great  deal  of 
Mr.  Shelley's  poetry  ought  to  have  been  writ- 
ten in  prose.     It  consists  of  philosophical  spe- 
culations, which  required  an  introduction   to 
the  understandings   of   the    community,   and 
not    merely,   as  he   thought,   a  recommenda- 
tion to  their  good  will.     The  less  philosophic 
he  becomes,  reverting  to  his  own  social  feel- 
ings, as   in   some   of  the   pathetic   complaints 
before  us ;  or  appealing  to  the  common  ones 
2  A  2 


356  MR.  SHELLEY. 

of  mankind  upon  matters  immediately  agi- 
tating them,  as  in  the  "  Ode  to  Naples ;"  or 
giving  himself  fairly  up  to  the  sports  of  fancy, 
as  in  the  "  Witch  of  Atlas,"  or  "  The  Trans- 
lations from  Goethe  and  Homer ;"  the  more  he 
delights  and  takes  with  him,  those  who  did 
not  know  whether  to  argue,  or  to  feel,  in  some 
of  his  larger  works.  The  common  reader  is 
baffled  with  the  perplexing  mixture  of  passion 
and  calmness;  of  the  severest  reasoning,  and 
the  wildest  fiction ;  of  the  most  startling  ap- 
pearances of  dissent,  and  the  most  conventional 
calls  upon  sympathy.  But  in  all  his  writings 
there  is  a  wonderful  sustained  sensibility,  and 
a  language  lofty  and  fit  for  it.  He  has  the 
art  of  using  the  stateliest  words  and  the  most 
learned  idioms,  without  incurring  the  charge 
of  pedantry ;  so  that  passages  of  more  splen- 
did and  sonorous  writing  are  not  to  be  selected 
from  any  writer,  since  the  time  of  Milton :  and 
yet  when  he  descends  from  his  ideal  worlds, 
and  comes  home  to  us  in  our  humbler  bowers* 
and  our  yearnings  after  love  and  affection,  he 
attunes  the  most  natural  feelings  to  a  style  so 
proportionate,  and  withal  to  a  modulation  so 


MR.  SHELLEY.  357 

truly  musical,  that  there  is  nothing  to  surpass 
it  in  the  lyrics  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher. 

Let  the  reader,  whom  these  pages  may  have 
rendered  more  desirous  of  knowing  Mr.  Shel- 
ley, turn  to  the  volume  in  question,  and  judge 
for  himself  in  what  sort  of  spirit  it  was  that 
he  wrote  the  "  Witch  of  Atlas,"  the  "  Letter" 
to  a  Friend  at  p.  59,  part  of  the  "  Ode  to  Na- 
ples," the  "  Song"  at  p,  141,  a  "  Lament,"  the 
"  Question,"  "  Lines  to  an  Indian  Air,"  "  Stan- 
zas written  in  dejection  near  Naples,"  Lines  on 
a  "  Faded  Violet,"  "  Lines  to  a  Critic,"  "  To- 
morrow," "  Good  Night,"  "  Love's  Philosophy," 
the  "  Stanzas"  at  p.  214,  and  the  "  Translations 
from  Goethe  and  Homer."  The  verses  "  On 
the  Medusa's  Head  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci"  are 
perhaps  as  fine  as  any  thing  in  the  book,  for 
power.  The  poetry  seems  sculptured  and  grin- 
ning, like  the  subject.  The  words  are  cut 
with  a  knife.  But  love  is  the  great  inspirer  of 
Mr.  Shelley.  His  very  abstract  ideas  are  in  love. 

'  The  deep  recesses  of  her  odorous  dwelling 

Were  stored  with  magic  treasures — sounds  of  air, 
Which  had  the  power  all  spirits  of  compelling, 
Folded  in  cells  of  crystal  silence  there  ; 


358  MR.  SHELLEY. 

Such  as  we  hear  in  youth,  and  think  the  feeling 
Will  never  die — yet  ere  we  are  aware, 

The  feeling  and  the  sound  are  fled  and  gone, 
And  the  regret  they  leave  remains  alone. 

And  there  lay  Visions  swift,  and  sweet,  and  quaint, 
Each  in  its  thin  sheath  like  a  chrysalis ; 

Some  eager  to  burst  forth,  some  weak  and  faint 

With  the  soft  burthen  of  intensest  bliss." 

We  have  heard  of  ladies  falling  in  love  with 
Lord  Byron,  upon  the  strength  of  Don  Juan. 
These  must  be  ladies  in  towns.  If  ever  a  more 
sequestered  heroine  could  become  enamoured 
of  a  poet  out  of  the  mere  force  of  sentiment,  or 
at  least  desire  to  give  him  exceeding  comfort 
and  consolation,  it  would  be  such  a  poet  as 
Mr.  Shelley.  The  most  physical  part  of  the 
passion  acquires,  from  his  treatment  of  it,  a 
grace  and  purity  inexpressible.  It  is  curious 
to  see  with  what  fearlessness,  in  the  conscious 
dignity  of  this  power,  he  ventures  to  speak 
of  things  that  would  defy  all  mention  from 
a  less  ingenuous  lip.  The  "  Witch  of  Atlas" 
will  be  liked  by  none  but  poets,  or  very  poetical 
readers.  Spenser  would  have  liked  it :  Sir 
Kenelm  Digby  would  have  written  a  comment 
upon  it.  Its  meanings  are  too  remote,  and  its 


MR.  SHELLEY.  359 

imagery  too  wild,  to  be  enjoyed  by  those  who 
cannot  put  on  wings  of  the  most  subtle  con- 
ception, and  remain  in  the  uttermost  parts  of 
idealism.  Even  those  who  can,  will  think  it 
something  too  dreamy  and  involved.  They 
will  discover  the  want  of  light  and  shade, 
which  I  have  before  noticed,  and  which  leaves 
the  picture  without  its  due  breadth  and  per- 
spective. It  is  the  fault  of  some  of  Mr.  Shel- 
ley's poems,  that  they  look  rather  like  store- 
houses of  imagery,  than  imagery  put  into  pro- 
per action.  We  have  the  misty  regions  of  wide 
air, 

"  The  hills  of  snow,  and  lofts  of  piled  thunder — " 

which  Milton  speaks  of;  but  they  are  too 
much  in  their  elementary  state,  as  if  just  about 
to  be  used,  and  moving  in  their  first  chaos. 
To  a  friend,  who  pointed  out  to  him  this  fault, 
Mr.  Shelley  said,  that  he  would  consider  it 
attentively,  and  doubted  not  he  should  profit 
by  the  advice.  He  scorned  advice  as  little  as 
he  did  any  other  help  to  what  was  just  and 
good.  He  could  both  give  and  take  it  with 
an  exquisite  mixture  of  frankness  and  delicacy, 
that  formed  one  of  the  greatest  evidences  of 


360  MR.  SHELLEY. 

his  superiority  to  common  virtue.  I  have  men- 
tioned before,  that  his  temper  was  admirable. 
He  was  naturally  irritable  and  violent ;  but  had 
so  mastered  the  infirmity,  as  to  consider  every 
body's  inclinations  before  his  own.  Mr.  Tre- 
lawney  pronounced  him  to  be  a  man  absolutely 
without  selfishness.  In  his  intercourse  with 
myself,  nothing  delighted  him  more  than  to 
confound  the  limits  of  our  respective  property, 
in  money-matters,  books,  apparel,  &c.  He 
would  help  himself  without  scruple  to  what- 
ever he  wanted,  whether  a  book  or  a  waistcoat ; 
and  was  never  better  pleased,  than  at  finding 
things  of  his  own  in  his  friend's  possession. 

The  way  in  which  Mr.  Shelley's  eye  darted 
"  from  heaven  to  earth,"  and  the  sort  of  call 
at  which  his  imagination  was  ever  ready  to 
descend,  is*  well  exemplified  in  the  following 
passage  of  the  Letter  at  p.  59-  The  unhappy 
mass  of  prostitution  which  exists  in  England, 
contrasted  with  something  which  seems  to  des- 
pise it,  and  which,  in  more  opinions  than  his, 
is  a  main  cause  of  it,  was  always  one  of  the 
subjects  that  at  a  moment's  notice  would  over- 
shadow the  liveliest  of  his  moods.  The  pic- 


MR.  SHELLEY.  36l 

turesque  line  in  italics  is  beautifully  true.     The 
poet  is  writing  to  a  friend  in  London. 

"  Unpavilioned  heaven  is  fair, 
Whether  the  moon,  into  her  chamber  gone, 
Leaves  midnight  to  the  golden  stars,  or  wan 
Climbs  with  diminish'd  beams  the  azure  steep  ; 
Or  whether  clouds  sail  o'er  the  inverse  deep, 
Piloted  by  the  many-wandering  blast, 
And  the  rare  stars  rush  through  them,  dim  and  fast. 
All  this  is  beautiful  in  every  land. 
But  what  see  you  beside  ?     A  shabby  stand 
Of  hackney  coaches — a  brick  house  or  wall, 
Fencing  some  lonely  court,  white  with  the  scrawl 
Of  our  unhappy  politics  ;  or  worse. 
A  wretched  woman,  reeling  by,  whose  curse 
Mix'd  with  the  watchman's,  partner  of  her  trade, 
You  must  accept  in  place  of  serenade." 


These  miserable  women,  sometimes  indeed  ow- 
ing to  the  worst  and  most  insensible*qualities  on 
their  own  parts,  but  sometimes  also  to  the  best 
and  most  guileless,  are  at  such  a  dreadful  dis- 
advantage compared  with  those  who  are  sleep- 
ing at  such  an  hour  in  their  comfortable  homes, 
that  it  is  difficult  to  pitch  our  imaginations 
among  the  latter,  for  a  refuge  from  the  thought 
of  them.  Real  love,  however,  even  if  it  be 


362 


MR.  SHELLEY. 


unhappy,  provided  its  sorrow  be  without  con- 
tempt and  sordidness,  will  furnish  us  with  a 
transition  less  startling.  The  following  Lines 
to  an  Indian  Air,  make  an  exquisite  serenade. 

"  I  arise  from  dreams  of  thee 
In  the  first  sweet  sleep  of  night, 
When  the  winds  are  breathing  low, 
And  the  stars  are  shining  bright  ; 
I  arise  from  dreams  of  thee, 
And  a  spirit  in  my  feet 
Has  led  me — who  knows  how  ? 
To  thy  chamber-window,  sweet .' 

"  The  wandering  airs  they  faint 
On  the  dark,  the  silent  stream — 
The  champak  odours  fall, 
Like  sweet  thoughts  in  a  dream  ; 
The  nightingale's  complaint 
It  dies  upon  her  heart, 
As  I  must  upon  thine, 
Beloved  as  thou  art  ! 

"  O  lift  me  from  the  grass  ! 
I  die,  I  faint,  I  fail ! 
Let  thy  love  in  kisses  rain 
On  my  lips  and  eyelids  pale. 
My  cheek  is  cold  and  white,  alas  .' 
My  heart  beats  loud  and  fast ; 
Oh !  press  it  close  to  thine  again, 
Where  it  will  break  at  last." 


MR.  SHELLEY. 

I  know  not  that  two  main  parts  of  Mr.  Shel- 
ley's poetical  genius,  the  descriptive  and  the 
pathetic,  ever  vented  themselves  to  more 
touching  purpose  than  in  the  lines  Written  in 
Dejection  near  Naples.  The  brilliant  yet  soft 
picture  with  which  they  commence,  introduces 
the  melancholy  observer  of  it  in  a  manner  ex- 
tremely affecting.  He  beholds  what  delights 
others,  and  is  willing  to  behold  it,  though  it 
delights  him  not.  He  even  apologizes  for  "in- 
sulting" the  bright  day  he  has  painted  so  beau- 
tifully, with  his  "  untimely  moan."  The  stan- 
zas exhibit,  at  once,  minute  observation,  the 
widest  power  to  generalize,  exquisite  power  to 
enjoy,  and  admirable  patience  at  the  want  of 
enjoyment.  This  latter  combination  forms  the 
height  of  the  amiable,  as  the  former  does  of  the 
intellectual  character.  The  fourth  stanza  will 
strongly  move  the  reader  of  this  memoir. 

"  The  sun  is  warm,  the  sky  is  clear, 

The  waves  are  dancing  fast  and  bright, 
Blue  isles  and  snowy  mountains  wear 
The  purple  moon's  transparent  light 

4-         *  »  *  *  *  * 

t  A  line  is  wanting  in  the  Edition. 


364  ME.  SHELLEY. 

Around  its  unexpanded  buds ; 

Like  many  a  voice  of  one  delight, 
The  winds,  the  birds,  the  ocean  floods, 
The  City's  voice  itself  is  soft,  like  Solitude's. 

"  I  see  the  deep's  untrampled  floor  , 

With  green  and  purple  sea-weeds  strown  ; 
I  see  the  waves  upon  the  shore, 

Like  light  dissolved  in  star-showers,  thrown. 
I  sit  upon  the  sands  alone  ; 

The  lightning  of  the  noon-tide  ocean 
Is  flashing  round  me,  and  a  tone 

Arises  from  its  measured  motion, 
How  sweet !  did  any  heart  now  share  in  my  emotion. 

"  Alas  !    I  have  nor  hope,  nor  health, 

Nor  peace  within,  nor  calm  around, 
Nor  that  content  surpassing  wealth, 

The  sage  in  meditation  found, 
And  walk'd  with  inward  glory  crown'd ; 

Nor  fame,  nor  power,  nor  love,  nor  leisure. 
Others  I  see  whom  these  surround ; 

Smiling  they  live,  and  call  life  pleasure ; — 
To  me  that  cup  has  been  dealt  in  another  measure. 

"  Yet  now  despair  itself  is  mild, 

Ev'n  as  the  winds  and  waters  are  ; 

/  could  lie  down  like  a  tired  child, 
And  weep  away  the  life  of  care 

Which  I  have  borne  and  yet  must  bear, 
Till  death,  like  sleep,  might  steal  on  me, 


MR.  SHELLEY.  365 

And  I  might  feel  in  the  warm  air 

My  cheek  grow  cold,  and  hear  the  sea 
Breathe  o'er  my  dying  brain  its  last  monotony. 

"  Some  might  lament  that  I  were  cold, 
As  I  when  this  sweet  day  is  done, 
Which  my  lost  heart,  too  soon  grown  old, 

Insults  with  this  untimely  moan  : 
They  might  lament,  for  I  am  one 

Whom  men  love  not,  and  yet  regret ; 
Unlike  this  day,  which,  when  the  sun 

Shall  on  its  stainless  glory  set, 
Will  linger,  though  enjoy' d,  like  joy  in  memory  yet." 

The  pieces,  that  call  to  mind  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher,  are  such  as  the  following : — 

"  Music,  when  soft  voices  die, 
Vibrates  in  the  memory  ; 
Odours,  when  sweet  violets  sicken, 
Live  within  the  sense  they  quicken. 

"  Rose-leaves,  when  the  rose  is  dead, 
Are  heap'd  for  the  beloved's  bed ; 
And  so  thy  thoughts,  when  thou  art  gone, 
Love  itself  shall  slumber  on." 

"  Love's  Philosophy"  is  another.  It  has  been 
often  printed;  but  for  the  same  reason  will 
bear  repetition.  The  sentiment  must  be  un- 


366  MR.  SHELLEY. 

derstood  with  reference  to  the  delicacy  as  well 
as  freedom  of  Mr.  Shelley's  opinions,  and  not 
as  supplying  any  excuse  to  that  heartless  li- 
bertinism which  no  man  disdained  more.  The 
poem  is  here  quoted  for  its  grace  and  lyrical 
sweetness. 

"  The  fountains  mingle  with  the  river, 

And  the  river  with  the  ocean  ; 
The  winds  of  heaven  mix  for  ever, 

With  a  sweet  emotion : 
Nothing  in  the  world  is  single ; 

All  things,  by  a  law  divine, 
In  one  another's  being  mingle — 

Why  not  I  with  thine  ? 

"  See  the  mountains  kiss  high  heaven, 

And  the  waves  clasp  one  another ; 
No  sister  flower  would  be  forgiven, 

If  it  disdain'd  its  brother : 
And  the  sunlight  clasps  the  earth, 

And  the  moonbeams  kiss  the  sea  ; 
What  are  all  these  kissings  worth, 

If  thou  kiss  not  me  ?" 

Mr.  Shelley  ought  to  have  written  nothing 
but  dramas,  interspersed  with  such  lyrics  as 
these.  Perhaps  had  he  lived,  he  would  have 
done  so ;  for,  after  all,  he  was  but  young ;  and 


MR.  SHELLEY.  36? 

he  had  friends  of  that  opinion,  whom  he  was 
much  inclined  to  agree  with.  The  fragment 
of  the  tragedy  of  Charles  the  First,  in  this 
volume,  makes  us  long  for  more  of  it.  With 
all  his  republicanism,  he  would  have  done  jus- 
tice to  Charles,  as  well  as  to  Pym  and  Hamp- 
den.  His  completest  production  is  unquestion- 
ably the  tragedy  of  the  "  Cenci."  The  objec- 
tions to  the  subject  are,  on  the  face  of  them, 
not  altogether  unfounded  ;  but  they  ought  not 
to  weigh  with  those  who  have  no  scruple 
in  grappling  with  any  of  the  subjects  of  our 
old  English  drama ;  still  less,  if  they  are  true 
readers  of  that  drama,  and  know  how  to  think 
of  the  great  ends  of  poetry  in  a  liberal  and 
masculine  manner.  "  Cenci"  is  the  personi- 
fication of  a  will,  maddened,  like  a  Roman 
emperor's,  by  the  possession  of  impunity ; 
deadened  to  all  sense  of  right  and  wrong 
by  degrading  notions  of  a  Supreme  Being ; 
and  consequently  subjected  to  the  most  fright- 
ful wants,  and  knowing  no  pleasure  but  in 
sensuality  or  malignity.  The  least  of  his  ac- 
tions becomes  villainous,  because  he  does  it 
in  defiance  of  principle.  On  the  other  hand, 


368  MR.  SHELLEY. 

his  death  by  the  hand  of  his  outraged  daughter 
produces  a  different  meeting  of  extremes,  be- 
cause it  results,  however  madly,  from  horror 
at  the  violation  of  principle.  The  reader  re- 
fuses to  think  that  a  daughter  has  slain  a 
father,  precisely  because  a  dreadful  sense  of 
what  a  father  ought  not  to  have  done  has 
driven  her  to  it,  and  because  he  sees  that  in 
any  other  situation  she  would  be  the  most 
exemplary  of  children.  This  remark  is  made 
for  the  benefit  of  the  curious  reader,  and  to 
vindicate  Mr.  Shelley  from  having  taken  up  a 
subject  out  of  pure  scorn  of  his  feelings:  a 
strange  policy  in  any  author,  and  not  surely 
to  be  found  in  him.  Considering  what  an  ex- 
cellent production  the  Cenci  is,  it  is  certainly  diffi- 
cult to  help  wishing  that  the  subject  had  been  of 
a  nature  to  startle  nobody  ;  but  it  may  be  as 
truly  added,  that  such  a  subject  could  have 
been  handled  by  no  other  writer  in  a  manner 
less  offensive,  or  more  able  to  suggest  its  own 
vindication. 

The  Translations  that  conclude  the  "  Post- 
humous Poems,"  are  masterly.  That  of  the 
"  Hymn  to  Mercury,"  containing  the  pranks 


MR.  SHELLEY.  369 

of  the  Deity  when  young,  abounds  in  singular 
animal  spirits,  a  careless  yet  exuberant  feeling 
of  mixed  power  and  indifference,  of  the  zest  of 
new-born  life,  and  a  godlike  superiority  to  its 
human  manifestations  of  it,  such  as  we  might 
suppose  to  take  place  before  vice  and  virtue 
were  thought  of,  or  only  thought  of  to  afford 
pastime  for  mischievous  young  gods,  who 
were  above  the  necessity  of  behaving  them- 
selves. I  will  confine  myself,  however,  to 
the  quotation  of  a  passage  or  two  from  the 
scenes  out  of  Goethe's  "  Faust."  They  con- 
tain the  Prologue  in  Heaven,  which  Lord 
Leveson  Gower  has  omitted  in  his  transla- 
tion, and  the  May-day  Night,  which  he  has 
abridged,  and  thought  untranslatable.  The 
Prologue  in  Heaven  is  remarkable  for  the  liber- 
ties which  a  privy-counsellor  and  gentleman 
with  a  star  at  his  breast  (for  such  the  original 
poet  is)  may  take  with  the  scriptural  idea  of 
the  Divinity,  and  yet  find  readers  to  eulogize 
and  translate  him.  It  is  a  parody  on  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Book  of  Job.  Not  that  I  be- 
lieve the  illustrious  German  intended  any  dis- 
respect to  loftier  conceptions  of  a  Deity.  The 
VOL.  i.  SB 


370  MR.  SHELLEY. 

magnificent  Hymn  that  precedes  it,  shows  he 
can  do  justice  to  the  noblest  images  of  cre- 
ation, and  improve  what  other  poets  have  re- 
peated to  us  of  the  songs  of  angels.  Mr.  Shel- 
ley's opinion  of  the  Book  of  Job  (on  which 
he  thought  of  founding  a  tragedy)  was  not  the 
less  exalted,  (nor,  I  dare  say,  Goethe's  either,) 
because  he  could  allow  himself  to  make  this 
light  and  significant  comment  on  the  exor- 
dium. But  it  is  worth  while  noticing  these 
sort  of  discrepancies ;  and  to  observe  also,  how 
readily  they  shall  be  supposed  without  being 
comprehended  for  the  sake  of  one  man,  and 
how  little  comprehended  or  supposed  either  for 
the  toleration  of  another. 

SCENE THE    HARTZ    MOUNTAIN,    A    DESOLATE    COUNTRY. 

Faust,  Mephtstophiles. 

Meph.  Would  you  not  like  a  broomstick  ?     As  for  me, 

I  wish  I  had  a  good  stout  ram  to  ride  ; 

For  we  are  still  far  from  th'  appointed  place. 
Faust.  This  knotted  staff  is  help  enough  for  me, 

Whilst  I  feel  fresh  upon  my  legs.     What  good 

Is  there  in  making  short  a  pleasant  way  ? 

To  creep  along  the  labyrinths  of  the  vales, 

And  climb  those  rocks,  where  ever-babbling  springs 

Precipitate  themselves  in  waterfalls, 


Mil.  SHELLEY.  #71 

Is  the  true  sport  that  seasons  such  a  path. 

Already  Spring  kindles  the  birchen  spray, 

And  the  hoar  pines  already  feel  her  breath  : 

Shall  she  not  work  also  within  our  limbs  ? 
Meph.  Nothing  of  such  an  influence  do  I  feel. 

My  body  is  all  wintry,  and  I  wish 

The  flowers  upon  our  path  were  frost  and  snow. 

But  see  ;  how  Melancholy  rises  now 

Dimly  uplifting  her  belated  beam, 

The  blank  unwelcome  round  of  the  red  moon, 

And  gives  so  bad  a  light,  that  every  step 

One  stumbles  'gainst  some  crag.     With  your  permission, 

I  '11  call  an  Ignis-Fatuus  to  our  aid  ; 

I  see  one  yonder  burning  jollily. 

Halloo,  my  friend !  may  I  request  that  you 

Would  favour  us  with  your  bright  company  ? 

Why  should  you  blaze  away  there  to  no  purpose  ? 

Pray,  be  so  good  as  light  us  up  this  way. 
Ignis-Fatuus.  With  reverence  be  it  spoken,  I  will  try 

To  overcome  the  lightness  of  my  nature : 

Our  course,  you  know,  is  generally  zig-zag. 
Meph.     Ha !  ha  !  your  worship  thinks  you  have  to  deal 

With  men.     Go  straight  on,  in  the]Devil's  name, 

Or  I  shall  puff  your  flickering  light  out. 
Ignis-Fatuus.  Well, 

I  see  you  are  the  master  of  the  house  ; 

I  will  accommodate  myself  to  you. 

Only  consider,  that  to-night  this  mountain 

Is  all  enchanted,  and  if  Jack-a-lanthorn 

Shows  you  his  way,  though  you  should  miss  your  own, 

You  ought  not  to  be  too  exact  with  him. 

2  B  2 


372  MR.  SHELLEY. 

Faust,  Mepkistophiles,  and  Ignis-Fatuus,  in  alternate  chorus. 

The  limits  of  the  sphere  of  dream, 
The  bounds  of  true  and  false,  are  past. 

Lead  us  on,  thou  wandering  Gleam, 
Lead  us  onward,  far  and  fast, 
To  the  wide,  the  desert  waste. 

But  see  how  swift  advance  and  shift 

Trees  behind  trees,  row  by  row, — 
How,  clift  by  clift,  rocks  bend  and  lift 

Their  frowning  foreheads  as  we  go. 

The  giant-snouted  crags,  ho  !  ho  ! 

How  they  snort,  and  how  they  blow  ! 

Through  the  mossy  sods  and  stones, 
Stream  and  streamlet  hurry  down ; 

A  rushing  throng !     A  sound  of  song 
Beneath  the  vault  of  heaven  is  blown  ! 

A  profound  living  critic  (I  forget  his  name) 
has  discovered,  that  the  couplet  in  italics  is  ab- 
surd— crags  having  no  snouts  properly  so  called, 
and  being  things  by  no  means  alive  or  blowing ! 
The  plot  now  thickens.  Every  thing  is  vivi- 
fied like  the  rocks ;  every  thing  takes  a  devilish 
aspect  and  meaning ;  the  winds  rise ;  the  strag- 
glers of  the  Devil's  festival  begin  to  appear, 
and  the  travellers  feel  themselves  in  the  "  witch 
element." 


]\JU.  SHE  I. LEY.  373 

Faust.  How 

The  children  of  the  wind  rage  in  the  air ! 
With  what  fierce  strokes  they  fall  upon  my  neck 

***** 

Meph.     Dost  thou  not  hear  ? 

Strange  accents  are  ringing 
Aloft,  afar,  anear, 

The  witches  are  singing  ! 
The  torrent  of  the  raging  wizard  song 
Streams  the  whole  mountain  along. 

Chorus  of  Witches. 

The  stubble  is  yellow,  the  corn  is  green, 
Now  to  the  Brocken  the  witches  go  ; 
The  mighty  multitude  here  may  be  seen 
Gathering,  wizard  and  witch,  below. 
Sir  Urean  is  sitting  aloft  in  the  air  ; 
Hey  over  stock,  and  hey  over  stone  ! 
'Twixt  witches  and  incubi  what  shall  be  done  ? 
Tell  it  who  dare  !  tell  it  who  dare  ! 
A  Voice.     Upon  a  sow-swine,  whose  farrows  were  nine, 

Old  Baubo  rideth  alone. 
Chorus.     Honour  her  to  whom  honour  is  due, 
Old  Mother  Baubo  !  honour  to  you  ! 
An  able  sow,  with  old  Baubo  upon  her, 
Is  worthy  of  glory,  and  worthy  of  honour  ! 
The  legion  of  witches  is  coming  behind, 
Darkening  the  night,  and  outspeeding  the  wind. 
A  Voice.     Which  way  comest  thou  ? 
A  Voice.  Over  Ilsenstein ; 

The  owl  was  awake  in  the  white  moonshine  ; 


374  Mil.  SHELLEY. 

I  saw  her  at  rest  in  her  downy  nest, 

And  she  stared  at  me  with  her  broad,  bright  eye. 
Voices.  And  you  may  now  as  well  take  your  course  on  to  Hell, 

Since  you  ride  by  so  fast,  on  the  headlong  blast. 
A  Voice.     She  dropped  poison  upon  me,  as  I  past. 

Here  are  the  wounds. 
Chorus  of  Wilches.     Come  away  !  come  along  ! 

The  way  is  wide,  the  way  is  long ! 

But 'what  is  that  for  a  Bedlam  throng  ? 

Stick  with  the  prong,  and  scratch  with  the  broom. 

The  child  in  the  cradle  lies  strangled  at  home, 

And  the  mother  is  clapping  her  hands. 
Semi-chorus  of  Wizards. — 1st. — We  glide  in 

Like  snails  when  the  women  are  all  away. 

From  a  house  once  given  over  to  sin, 

Woman  has  a  thousand  steps  to  stray. 
Semi-chorus—  2nd, — A  thousand  steps  must  a  woman  take, 

Where  a  man  but  a  single  step  will  make. 
Voices  above.      Come  with    us,   come  with  us,    from    Fel- 

sensee  !* 

Voices  below.     With  what  joy  would  we  fly  through  the  up- 
per sky  ! 

We  are  washed,  we  are  'nointed,  stark-naked  are  we : 

But  our  toil  and  our  pain  are  for  ever  in  vain. 


*  A  gentleman,  who  reads  German,  informs  me,  that 
there  must  either  be  a  mistake  of  the  transcriber  here,  or 
that  Mr.  Shelley  for  the  moment  had  left  untranslated  the 
concluding  word  of  the  line  ;  which  is  not  a  proper  name, 
but  means  a  sea  of  rocks — the  Felsen-see. 


.MR.  SHELLI'r.  375 


Both  Choruses.     The  wind  is  still,  the  stars  are  fled, 

The  melancholy  moon  is  dead  ; 

The  magic  notes,  like  spark  on  spark, 

Drizzle,  whistling  through  the  dark, 

Come  away  ! 

Voices  below.     Stay,  oh,  stay  ! 
Voices  above.     Out  of  the  crannies  of  the  rocks, 

Who  calls  ? 
Voice  below.     Oh  let  me  join  your  flocks  ! 

I  three  hundred  years  have  striven 

To  catch  your  skirt,  and  mount  to  heaven, 

And  still  in  vain.     Oh,  might  I  be 

In  company  akin  with  me  ! 
Both  choruses.     Some  on  a  ram,  and  some  on  a  prong, 

On  poles  and  on  broomsticks  we  flutter  along  ; 

Forlorn  is  the  wight,  who  can  rise  not  to-night. 
A  Half-Witch  below.     I  have  been  tripping  this  many  an 
hour  ; 

Are  the  others  already  so  far  before  ? 

No  quiet  at  home,  and  no  peace  abroad  ! 

And  less  methinks  is  found  by  the  road. 
Chorus  of  Witches.    Come  onward,  away  !  aroint  thee,  aroint  ! 

A  witch  to  be  strong  must  anoint,  anoint  — 

Then  every  trough  will  be  boat  enough  ; 

With  a  rag  for  a  sail,  he  can  sweep  through  the  sky,  — 

Who  flies  not  to-night,  when  means  he  to  fly  ? 
Both  choruses.     We  cling  to  the  skirt,  and  we  strike  on  the 
ground  ; 

Witch  legions  thicken  around  and  around  ; 

Wizard  swarms  cover  the  heath  all  over. 

(They  descend.} 


376 


MR.  SHELLEY. 


Meph.     What  thronging,  dashing,  raging,  rustling; 

What  whispering,  babbling,  hissing,  bustling 

What  glimmering,  spurting,  stinking,  burning ; 

As  heaven  and  earth  were  overturning. 

There  is  a  true  witch  element  about  us ; 

Take  hold  on  me,  or  we  shall  be  divided  : — 

Where  are  you  ? 

Faust,     (from  a  distance.)     Here  ! 
Meph.  What! 

I  must  exert  my  authority  in  the  house. 

Place  for  young  Voland !  pray  make  way,  good  people. 

Take  hold  on  me,  Doctor,  and  with  one  step 

Let  us  escape  from  this  unpleasant  crowd  : 

They  are  too  mad  for  people  of  my  sort. 

Just  there  shines  a  peculiar  kind  of  light — 

Something  attracts  me  in  those  bush    .      Come 

This  way :  we  shall  slip  down  there  in  a  minute. 
Faust.     Spirit  of  Contradiction  !     Well,  lead  on — 

'Twere  a  wise  feat,  indeed,  to  wander  out 

Into  the  Brocken  upon  May-day  night, 

And  then  to  isolate  oneself  in  scorn, 

Disgusted  with  the  humours  of  the  time. 
Meph.     See  yonder,  round  a  many-coloured  flame, 

A  merry  club  is  huddled  all  together : 

Even  with  suck  little  people  an  sit  there, 

One  would  not  be  alone. 
Fau&t.  Would  that  I  were 

Up  yonder  in  the  glow  and  whirling  smoke, 

Where  the  blind  million  rush  impetuously 

To  meet  the  evil  ones  !  there  might  I  solve 

Many  a  riddle  that  torments  me. 


MK.   SHELLEY.  377 

Meph.  Yet 

Many  a  riddle  there  is  tied  anew 
Inextricably.     Let  the  great  world  rage ! 
We  will  stay  here,  safe  in  the  quiet  dwellings. 
It 's  an  old  custom.     Men  have  ever  built 
Their  own  small  world  in  the  great  world  of  all. 

Observe,  here,  how  the  author  ridicules  alike 
useless  inquiries  and  a  selfish  passiveness.  The 
great  business  of  life  is  to  be  social  and  benefi- 
cent. The  witches  and  their  May-game  are 
selfish  and  vulgar  passions  of  all  sorts,  hardened 
into  malignity,  and  believing  only  in  the  plea- 
sures of  the  will.  Their  turmoil  is  in  vain. 
Their  highest  and  most  superstitious  reach  to 
heaven  recoils  only  into  disappointment,  and 
a  sense  of  hell.  But  the  author  proceeds  to 
have  a  gird  also  at  dry,  mechanical  theorists, 
unalive  to  sentiment  and  fancy.  No  sophis- 
tication escapes  him.  Take  a  passage  or  two, 
eminently  infernal. 

Meph.  (to  Faust,  who  has  seceded  from  the  dance.) 
Why  did  you  let  that  fair  girl  pass  by  you, 
Who  sung  so  sweetly  to  you  in  the  dance  ? 

Faust.     A  red  mouse,  in  the  middle  of  her  singing, 
Sprung  from  her  mouth. 


378  Mil.  SHELLEY. 

Meph.     That  was  all  right,  my  friend  ; 
Be  it  enough  that  the  mouse  was  not  grey. 
Do  not  disturb  your  hour  of  happiness 
With  close  consideration  of  such  trifles. 

This  is  an  image  of  bad  and  disgusting  pas- 
sions detected  in  one  whom  we  love,  and  in 
the  very  midst  and  heart  of  our  passion  ! — The 
following  may  be  interpreted  to  shadow  forth 
either  the  consequences  of  seduction,  or  the 
miserable  regret  with  which  a  man  of  the 
world  calls  to  mind  his  first  love,  and  his  be- 
lief in  goodness. 

Faust.     Then  saw  I — 

Meph.  What  ? 

Faust.  Seest  thou  not  a  pale, 

Fair  girl  standing  alone,  far,  far  away  ? 
She  drags  herself  now  forward  with  slow  steps, 
And  seems  as  if  she  moved  with  shackled  feet : 
I  cannot  overcome  the  thought  that  she 
Is  like  poor  Margaret. 

Meph.  Let  it  be — pass  on — 

No  good  can  come  of  it — it  is  not  well 
To  meet  it — it  is  an  enchanted  phantom, 
A  lifeless  idol :  with  its  numbing  look 
It  freezes  up  the  blood  of  man ;  and  they 
Who  meet  its  ghastly  stare  are  turned  to  stone, 
Like  those  who  saw  Medusa. 


MR.  SHELLEY.  379 

Faust.  Oh  too  true ! 

Her  eyes  are  like  the  eyes  of  a  fresh  corpse 
Which  no  beloved  hand  has  closed,  alas ! 
That  is  the  heart  which  Margaret  yielded  to  me—- 
Those are  the  lovely  limbs  which  I  enjoy'd  ! 

Meph.     It  is  all  magic !  poor  deluded  fool ! 
She  looks  to  every  one  like  his  first  love. 

Faust.     Oh  what  delight !  what  woe  !     I  cannot  turn 
My  looks  from  her  sweet  piteous  countenance. 
How  strangely  does  a  single  blood-red  line, 
Not  broader  than  the  sharp  edge  of  a  knife, 
Adorn  her  lovely  neck  ! 

Meph.  Ay,  she  can  carry 

Her  head  under  her  arm,  upon  occasion  ; 
Perseus  has  cut  it  off  for  her.     These  pleasures 
End  in  delusion. 

So  do  not  end  the  pleasures  given  us  by  men 
of  genius  with  great  and  beneficent  views.  So 
does  not  end  the  pleasure  of  endeavouring  to 
do  justice  to  their  memories,  however  painful 
the  necessity.  Some  good  must  be  done  them, 
however  small.  Some  pleasure  cannot  but  be 
realized,  for  a  great  principle  is  advocated,  and 
a  deep  gratitude  felt.  I  differed  with  Mr. 
Shelley  on  one  or  two  important  points  ;  but  I 
agreed  with  him  heartily  on  the  most  im- 
portant point  of  all, — the  necessity  of  doing 


380 


MR.  SHELLEY. 


good,  and  of  discussing  the  means  of  it  freely. 
I  do  not  think  the  world  so  unhappy  as  he  did, 
or  what  a  very  different  and  much  more  con- 
tented personage  has  not  hesitated  to  pro- 
nounce it, — a  "  vale  of  blood  and  tears."  But 
I  think  it  quite  unhappy  enough  to  require 
that  we  should  all  set  our  shoulders  to  the  task 
of  reformation  ;  and  this  for  two  reasons :  first, 
that  if  mankind  can  effect  any  thing,  they  can 
only  effect  it  by  trying,  instead  of  lamenting 
and  being  selfish ;  and  second,  that  if  no  other 
good  come  of  our  endeavours,  we  must  always 
be  the  better  for  what  keeps  human  nature  in 
hope  and  activity.  That  there  are  monstrous 
evils  to  be  got  rid  of,  nobody  doubts :  that  we 
never  scruple  to  get  rid  of  any  minor  evil  that 
annoys  us,  any  obstacle  in  our  way,  or  petty 
want  of  comfort  in  our  dwellings,  we  know  as 
certainly.  Why  the  larger  ones  should  be  left 
standing,  is  yet  to  be  understood.  Sir  Walter 
Scott  may  have  no  objection  to  his  "  vale  of 
blood  and  tears,"  provided  he  can  look  down 
upon  it  from  a  decent  aristocratical  height,  and 
a  well-stocked  mansion  ;  but  others  have  an 
inconvenient  habit  of  levelling  themselves  with 


MR.   SHELLEY.  381 

humanity,  and  feeling  for  their  neighbours : 
and  it  is  lucky  for  Sir  Walter  himself,  that 
they  have  so ;  or  Great  Britain  would  not  enjoy 
the  comfort  she  does  in  her  northern  atmos- 
phere. The  conventional  are  but  the  weakest 
and  most  thankless  children  of  the  unconven- 
tional. They  live  upon  the  security  the  others 
have  obtained  for  them.  If  it  were  not  for  the 
reformers  and  innovators  of  old,  the  Hampdens, 
the  Miltons,  and  the  Sydneys,  life  in  this  coun- 
try, with  all  its  cares,  would  not  be  the  conve- 
nient thing  it  is,  even  for  the  lowest  retainers 
of  the  lowest  establishment.  A  feeling  of  in- 
dignation will  arise,  when  we  think  of  great 
spirits  like  those,  contrasted  with  the  mean 
ones  that  venture  to  scorn  their  wisdom  and 
self-sacrifice;  but  it  is  swallowed  up  in  what 
absorbed  the  like  emotions  in  their  own  minds, 
— a  sense  of  the  many.  The  mean  spirit,  if  we 
knew  all,  need  not  be  denied  even  his  laugh. 
He  may  be  too  much  in  want  of  it.  But  the 
greatest  unhappiness  of  the  noble-minded  has 
moments  of  exquisite  relief.  Every  thing  of 
beautiful  and  good  that  exists,  has  a  kind  face 
for  him  when  he  turns  to  it ;  or  reflects  the 


382 


MR.   SHELLEY. 


happy  faces  of  others  that  enjoy  it,  if  he  can- 
not. He  can  extract  consolation  out  of  dis- 
comfiture itself, — if  the  good  he  sought  other- 
wise, can  come  by  it.  Mr.  Shelley  felt  the 
contumelies  he  underwent,  with  great  sensi- 
bility ;  and  he  expressed  himself  accordingly  ; 
but  I  know  enough  of  his  nature  to  be  certain, 
that  he  would  gladly  have  laid  down  his  life  to 
ensure  a  good  to  society,  even  out  of  the  most 
lasting  misrepresentations  of  his  benevolence. 
Great  is  the  pleasure  to  me  to  anticipate  the 
day  of  justice,  by  putting  an  end  to  this  evil. 
The  friends  whom  he  loved  may  now  bid  his 
brave  and  gentle  spirit  repose ;  for  the  human 
beings  whom  he  laboured  for,  begin  to  know 
him. 


LETTERS  FROM  MR.  SHELLEY 


TO 


MR.  LEIGH  HUNT. 


[I  REGRET  extremely,  on  the  reader's  ac- 
count, as  well  as  my  own,  that  I  have  not 
taken  better  and  more  grateful  care  of  the 
letters  which  my  friend  wrote  to  me.  I  know 
not  how  they  were  lost.  I  thought  I  had  pre- 
served them  better.  What  I  can  lay  before 
the  public,  I  do.] 

LETTER  I. 

Lyons,  March  22,  1818. 
MY   DEAR   FRIEND, 

Why  did  you  not  wake  me  that  night  before 
we  left  England,  you  and  Marianne  ?  I  take 
this  as  rather  an  unkind  piece  of  kindness  in 


384 


MR.  SHELLEY. 


you  ;   but  which,  in  consideration  of  the   six 
hundred  miles  between  us,  I  forgive. 

We  have  journeyed  towards  the  spring  that 
has  been  hastening  to  meet  us  from  the  south  ; 
and  though  our  weather  was  at  first  abomina- 
ble, we  have  now  warm  sunny  days,  and  soft 
winds,  and  a  sky  of  deep  azure,  the  most  se- 
rene I  ever  saw.  The  heat  in  this  city  to-day, 
is  like  that  of  London  in  the  midst  of  sum- 
mer. My  spirits  and  health  sympathize  in  the 
change.  Indeed,  before  I  left  London,  my 
spirits  were  as  feeble  as  my  health,  and  I  had 
demands  upon  them  which  I  found  difficult  to 
supply.  I  have  read  Foliage : — with  most  of 
the  poems  I  was  already  familiar.  What  a 
delightful  poem  the  "  Nymphs"  is !  especially 
the  second  part.  It  is  truly  poetical,  in  the  in- 
tense and  emphatic  sense  of  the  word.*  If  six 
hundred  miles  were  not  between  us,  I  should 

*  The  reader  will  pardon  my  retention  of  these  passages, 
for  the  sake  of  him  who  wrote  them.  The  poem  here  men- 
tioned did  not  deserve  what  Mr.  Shelley  said  of  it.  I  had 
not  been  careful  enough  in  writing  it, — had  not  brooded  suffi- 
ciently over  my  thoughts  to  concentrate  them  into  proper 
imagination  ;  perhaps  was  unable  to  do  so.  But  the  subject 
lay  in  those  sequestered  paths  of  beauty  and  mythology, 
which  Mr.  Shelley  was  fond  of. 


MR.  SHELLEY.  385 

say  what  pity  that  glib  was  not  omitted,  and 
that  the  poem  is  not  as  faultless  as  it  is  beau- 
tiful. But  for  fear  I  should  spoil  your  next 
poem,  I  will  not  let  slip  a  word  on  the  subject. 
Give  my  love  to  Marianne  and  her  sister,  and 
tell  Marianne  she  defrauded  me  of  a  kiss  by 
not  waking  me  when  she  went  away,  and  that 
as  I  have  no  better  mode  of  conveying  it,  I 
must  take  the  best,  and  ask  you  to  pay  the 
debt.  When  shall  I  see  you  all  again?  Oh 
that  it  might  be  in  Italy  !  I  confess  that  the 
thought  of  how  long  we  may  be  divided,  makes 
me  very  melancholy.  Adieu,  my  dear  friends. 
Write  soon. 

Ever  most  affectionately  your's 

P.  B.  S. 


LETTER  II. 

Livorno,  August  15,  1819. 
MY   DEAR   FRIEND, 

How  good  of  you  to  write  to  us  so  often, 
and  such  kind  letters  !  But  it  is  like  lending 
to  a  beggar.  What  can  I  offer  in  return  ?  * 

*  Such  is  the  way  in  which  the  most  generous  of  men 
used  to  talk  to  those  whom  he  had  obliged. 
VOL.  I.  2   C 


386 


MR.  SHELLEY. 


Though  surf ounded  by  suffering  and  dis- 
quietude, and  latterly  almost  overcome  by  our 
strange  misfortune,*  I  have  not  been  idle. 
My  Prometheus  is  finished,  and  I  am  also  on 
the  eve  of  completing  another  work,  totally 
different  from  any  thing  you  might  conjec- 
ture that  I  should  write,  of  a  more  popular 
kind  ;  and,  if  any  thing  of  mine  could  deserve 
attention,  of  higher  claims.  "  Be  innocent 
of  the  knowledge,  dearest  chuck,  till  thou 
approve  the  performance." 

I  send  you  a  little  poem  to  give  to  Oilier 
for  publication,  but  without  my  name :  Pea- 
cock will  correct  the  proofs.  I  wrote  it  with 
the  idea  of  offering  it^  to  the  Examiner,  but 
I  find  it  is  too  long.f  It  was  composed  last 
year  at  Este:  two  of  the  characters  you  will 
recognize ;  the  third  is  also  in  some  degree 
a  painting  from  nature,  but,  with  respect  to 
time  and  place,  ideal.  You  will  find  the  little 
piece,  I  think,  in  some  degree  consistent  with 

*  The  taking  away  of  his  children  by  the  Court  of  Chan- 
cery. 

f  "Julian  and  Maddalo,"  printed  in  the  Posthumous 
Poems.  Maddalo  is  Lord  Byron  ;  Julian  himself. 


MR.  SHELLEY.  387 

your  own  ideas  of  the  manner  in  which  poetry 
ought  to  be  written.  I  have  employed  a  cer- 
tain familiar  style  of  language  to  express  the 
actual  way  in  which  people  talk  with  each 
other,  whom  education  and  a  certain  refine- 
ment of  sentiment  have  placed  above  the 
use  of  vulgar  idioms.  I  use  the  word  vulgar 
in  its  most  extensive  sense :  the  vulgarity  of 
rank  and  fashion  is  as  gross  in  its  way,  as  that 
of  poverty,  and  its  cant  terms  equally  expres- 
sive of  base  conceptions,  and  therefore  equally 
unfit  for  poetry.  Not  that  the  familiar  style 
is  to  be  admitted  in  the  treatment  of  a  subject 
wholly  ideal,  or  in  that  part  of  any  subject 
which  relates  to  common  life,  where  the  pas- 
sion, exceeding  a  certain  limit,  touches  the 
boundaries  of  that  which  is  ideal.  Strong 
passion  expresses  itself  in  metaphor,  borrowed 
from  objects  alike  remote  or  near,  and  casts 
over  all  the  shadow  of  its  own  greatness .*  But 
what  am  I  about  ?  if  my  grandmother  sucks 
eggs,  was  it  I  who  taught  her  ? 

*  Let  me  admire  with  the  reader  (I  do  not  pretend  to  be 
under  the  necessity  of  calling  his  attention  to  it)  this  most 
noble  image. 

2    C   2 


388  MR.  SHELLEY. 

If  you  would  really  correct  the  proof,  I  need 
not  trouble  Peacock,  who,  I  suppose,  has 
enough.  Can  you  take  it  as  a  compliment 
that  I  prefer  to  trouble  you  ? 

I  do  not  particularly  wish  this  poem  to  be 
known  as  mine,  but,  at  all  events,  I  would 
not  put  my  name  to  it.  I  leave  you  to  judge 
whether  it  is  best  to  throw  it  in  the  fire,  or 
to  publish  it.  So  much  for  self — self,  that 
burr  that  will  stick  to  one.  Your  kind  ex- 
pressions about  my  Eclogue  *f  gave  me  great 
pleasure ;  indeed,  my  great  stimulus  in  writ- 
ing is  to  have  the  approbation  of  those  who 
feel  kindly  towards  me.  The  rest  is  mere 
duty.  I  am  also  delighted  to  hear  that  you 
think  of  us,  and  form  fancies  about  us.  We 

cannot  yet  come  home. 

##*•*# 

Most  affectionately  yours, 

P.  B.  SHELLEY. 

t  "  Rosalind  and  Helen." 


MR.  SHELLEY.  389 

LETTER  III. 

Livorno,  September  3d,  1819. 
MY    DEAR   FRIEND, 

At  length  has  arrived  Ollier's  parcel,  and 
with  it  the  portrait.  What  a  delightful  pre- 
sent !  It  is  almost  yourself,  and  we  sate  talk- 
ing with  it,  and  of  it,  all  the  evening 

It  is  a  great  pleasure  to  us  to  possess  it,  a  plea- 
sure in  a  time  of  need ;  coming  to  us  when 
there  are  few  others.  How  we  wish  it  were 
you,  and  not  your  picture !  How  I  wish  we 
were  with  you ! 

This  parcel,  you  know,  and  ah1  its  letters, 
are  now  a  year  old ;  some  older.  There  are 
all  kinds  of  dates,  from  March  to  August, 
1818,  and  "  your  date,"  to  use  Shakspeare's 
expression,  "  is  better  in  a  pie  or  a  pudding, 
than  in  your  letter."  "  Virginity,"  Parolles 
says, — but  letters  are  the  same  thing  in  ano- 
ther shape. 

With  it  came,  too,  Lamb's  works.  I  have 
looked  at  none  of  the  other  books  yet.  What 
a  lovely  thing  is  his  "  Rosamond  Gray !"  how 
much  knowledge  of  the  sweetest  and  deepest 
part  of  our  nature  in  it !  When  I  think  of 


390  MR.  SHELLEY. 

such  a  mind  as  Lamb's, — when  I  see  how  un- 
noticed remain  things  of  such  exquisite  and 
complete  perfection,  what  should  I  hope  for 
myself,  if  I  had  not  higher  objects  in  view 
than  fame  ? 

I  have  seen  too  little  of  Italy  and  of  pic- 
tures. Perhaps  Peacock  has  shown  you  some 
of  my  letters  to  him.  But  at  Rome  I  was 
very  ill,  seldom  able  to  go  out  without  a 
carriage ;  and  though  I  kept  horses  for  two 
months  there,  yet  there  is  so  much  to  see ! 
Perhaps  I  attended  more  to  sculpture  than 
painting, — its  forms  being  more  easily  intelli- 
gible than  those  of  the  latter.  Yet  I  saw  the 
famous  works  of  Raphael,  whom  I  agree  with 
the  whole  world  in  thinking  the  finest  painter. 
Why,  I  can  tell  you  another  time.  With  re- 
spect to  Michael  Angelo,  I  dissent,  and  think 
with  astonishment  and  indignation  on  the  com- 
mon notion  that  he  equals,  and  in  some  re- 
spect exceeds  Raphael.  He  seems  to  me  to 
have  no  sense  of  moral  dignity  and  loveliness ; 
and  the  energy  for  which  he  has  been  so  much 
praised,  appears  to  me  to  be  a  certain  rude, 
external,  mechanical  quality,  in  comparison 


MR.  SHELLEY.  391 

with  any  thing  possessed  by  Raphael ;  or  even 
much  inferior  artists.  His  famous  painting  in 
the  Sixtine  Chapel,  seems  to  me  deficient  in 
beauty  and  majesty,  both  in  the  conception 
and  the  execution.  He  has  been  called  the 
Dante  of  painting ;  but  if  we  find  some  of 
the  gross  and  strong  outlines,  which  are  em- 
ployed in  the  few  most  distasteful  passages  of 
the  Inferno,  where  shall  we  find  your  Fran- 
cesca, — where,  the  spirit  coming  over  the  sea 
in  a  boat,  like  Mars  rising  from  the  vapours 
of  the  horizon, — where,  Matilda  gathering 
flowers,  and  all  the  exquisite  tenderness,  and 
sensibility,  and  ideal  beauty,  in  which  Dante 
excelled  all  poets  except  Shakspeare  ? 

As  to   Michael  Angelo's   Moses — but  you 

have  seen   a   cast  of  that  in  England. 1 

write  these  things,  Heaven  knows  why  ! 

I  have  written  something  and  finished  it, 
different  from  any  thing  else,  and  a  new  at- 
tempt for  me ;  and  I  mean  to  dedicate  it  to 
you.*  I  should  not  have  done  so  without 
your  approbation,  but  I  asked  your  picture 

*  "  The  Cenci." 


392  MR.  SHELLEY. 

last  night,  and  it  smiled  assent.  If  I  did  not 
think  it  in  some  degree  worthy  of  you,  I 
would  not  make  you  a  public  offering  of  it. 
I  expect  to  have  to  write  to  you  soon  about 
it.  If  Oilier  is  not  turned  Christian,  Jew,  or 
become  infected  with  the  Murrain,  he  will 
publish  it.  Don't  let  him  be  frightened,  for 
it  is  nothing  which  by  any  courtesy  of  lan- 
guage can  be  termed  either  moral  or  im- 
moral. 

Mary  has  written  to  Marianne  for  a  parcel, 
in  which  I  beg  you  will  make  Oilier  enclose 
what  you  know  would  most  interest  me, — 
your  "  Calendar,"  (a  sweet  extract  from  which 
I  saw  in  the  Examiner,)  and  the  other  poems 
belonging  to  you ;  and,  for  some  friends  of 
mine,  my  Eclogue.  This  parcel,  which  must 
be  sent  instantly,  will  reach  me  by  October; 
but  don't  trust  letters  to  it,  except  just  a  line 
or  so.  When  you  write,  write  by  the  post. 
Ever  your  affectionate, 
P.  B.  S. 

My  love  to  Marianne  and  Bessy,  and  Thorn- 
ton too,  and  Percy,  &c.,  and  if  you  could  ima- 


MR.  SHELLEY.  393 

gine  any  way  in  .which  I  could  be  useful  to 
them  here,  tell  me.  I  will  inquire  about  the 
Italian  chalk.  You  have  no  idea  of  the  plea- 
sure this  portrait  gives  us. 


LETTER  IV. 

Livorno,  Sept.  27th,  1819. 
MY    DEAll    FRIEND, 

We  are  now  on  the  point  of  leaving  this 
place  for  Florence,  where  we  have  taken  plea- 
sant apartments  for  six  months,  which  brings 
us  to  the  1st  of  April ;  the  season  at  which 
new  flowers  and  new  thoughts  spring  forth 
upon  the  earth  and  in  the  mind.  What  is 
then  our  destination  is  yet  undecided.  I  have 
not  yet  seen  Florence,  except  as  one  sees  the 
outside  of  the  streets  ;  but  its  physiognomy  in- 
dicates it  to  be  a  city,  which,  though  the  ghost 
of  a  republic,  yet  possesses  most  amiable  qua- 
lities. I  wish  you  could  meet  us  there  in  the 
spring,  and  we  would  try  to  muster  up  a  "  lieta 
brigata,"  which,  leaving  behind  them  the  pes- 
tilence of  remembered  misfortunes,  might  act 
over  again  the  pleasures  of  the  interlocutors  in 


394  MR.  SHELLEY. 

Boccaccio.  I  have  been  lately  reading  this 
most  divine  writer.  He  is  in  the  high  sense  of 
the  word  a  poet,  and  his  language  has  the 
rythm  and  harmony  of  verse.  I  think  him 
not  equal  certainly  either  to  Dante  or  Petrarch, 
but  far  superior  to  Tasso  and  Ariosto,  the 
children  of  a  later  and  of  a  colder  day.  I  con- 
sider the  three  first  as  the  productions  of  the 
vigour  of  the  infancy  of  a  new  nation,  as  ri- 
vulets from  the  same  spring  as  that  which  fed 
the  greatness  of  the  Republics  of  Florence  and 
Pisa,  and  which  checked  the  influence  of  the 
German  emperors,  and  from  which,  through 
obscurer  channels,  Raphael  and  Michael  An- 
gelo  drew  the  light  and  the  harmony  of  their 
inspiration.  When  the  second-rate  poets  of 
Italy  wrote,  the  corrupting  blight  of  tyranny 
was  already  hanging  on  every  bud  of  genius. 
Energy  and  simplicity  and  unity  of  idea  were 
no  more.  In  vain  do  we  seek,  in  the  fine  pas- 
sages of  Ariosto  or  Tasso,  any  expression  which 
at  all  approaches,  in  this  respect,  to  those  of 
Dante  and  Petrarch.  How  much  do  I  admire 
Boccaccio !  What  descriptions  of  natiire  are 
there  in  his  little  introductions  to  every  new 


MR.  SHELLEY. 

day  !  It  is  the  morning  of  life,  stripped  of 
that  mist  of  familiarity  which  makes  it  obscure 
to  us.  Boccaccio  seems  to  me  to  have  pos- 
sessed a  deep  sense  of  the  fair  ideal  of  human 
life,  considered  in  its  social  relations.  His 
more  serious  theories  of  love  agree  especially 
with  mine.  He  often  expresses  things  lightly 
too,  which  have  serious  meanings  of  a  very 
beautiful  kind.  He  is  a  moral  casuist,  the 
opposite  of  the  ready-made  and  worldly  system 

of  morals. 

***** 

It  would  give  me  much  pleasure  to  know 
Mr.  Lloyd.  When  I  was  in  Cumberland,  I 
got  Southey  to  borrow  a  copy  of  "  Berkeley" 
from  him,  and  I  remember  observing  some 
pencil  notes  in  it,  probably  written  by  Lloyd, 
which  I  thought  particularly  acute. 

Most  affectionately  your  friend, 

P.  B.  S. 


396  MR.  SHELLEY. 

LETTER  V. 

Firenze,  Dec.  2,  1819. 
MY   DEAR   FRIEND, 

Yesterday  morning  Mary  brought  me  a 
little  boy.  She  suffered  but  two  hours'  pain, 
and  is  now  so  well  that  it  seems  a  wonder 
that  she  stays  in  bed.  The  babe  is  also  quite 
well,  and  has  begun  to  suck.  You  may  ima- 
gine this  is  a  great  relief  and  a  great  comfort 
to  me,  amongst  all  my  misfortunes,  past,  pre- 
sent, and  to  come. 

Since  I  last  wrote  to  you,  some  circumstan- 
ces have  occurred,  not  necessary  to  explain  by 
letter,  which  make  my  pecuniary  condition  a 
very  difficult  one.  The  physicians  absolutely 
forbid  my  travelling  to  England  in  the  winter, 
but  I  shall  probably  pay  you  a  visit  in  the 
spring.  With  what  pleasure,  among  all  the 
other  sources  of  regret  and  discomfort  with 
which  England  abounds  for  me,  do  I  think 
of  looking  on  the  original  of  that  kind  and 
earnest  face  which  is  now  opposite  Mary's 
bed !  It  will  be  the  only  thing  which  Mary 
will  envy  me,  or  will  need  to  envy  me,  in 
that  journey  ;  for  I  shall  come  alone.  Shaking 


MR.  SHELLEY.  397 

hands  with  you  is  worth  all  the  trouble ;  the 
rest  is  clear  loss. 

I  will  tell  you  more  about  myself  and  my 
pursuits,  in  my  next  letter. 

Kind  love  to  Marianne,  Bessy,  and  all  the 
children.  Poor  Mary  begins  (for  the  first 
time)  to  look  a  little  consoled.  For  we  have 
spent,  as  you  may  imagine,  a  miserable  five 
months. 

Good  bye,  my  dear  Hunt, 

Your  affectionate  Friend, 

P.  B.  S. 

I  have  had  no  letter  from  you  for  a  month. 


LETTER  VI. 

Florence,  Dec.  23,  1819. 
MY  DEAR  HUNT, 

Why  don't  you  write  to  us  ?  I  was  prepar- 
ing to  send  you  something  for  your  "  Indica- 
tor," but  1  have  been  a  drone  instead  of  a  bee 
in  this  business,  thinking  that  perhaps,  as  you 
did  not  acknowledge  any  of  my  late  enclo- 
sures, it  would  not  be  welcome  to  you,  what- 
ever I  might  send. 


398  MR.  SHELLEY. 

What  a  state  England  is '  in  !  But  you  will 
never  write  politics.  I  don't  wonder  ; — but  I 
wish,  then,  that  you  would  write  a  paper  in 
"  The  Examiner,"  on  the  actual  state  of  the 
country,  and  what,  under  all  the  circumstances 
of  the  conflicting  passions  and  interests  of 
men,  we  are  to  expect.  Not  what  we  ought 
to  expect,  or  what,  if  so  and  so  were  to  hap- 
pen, we  might  expect, — but  what,  as  things 
are,  there  is  reason  to  believe  will  come  ; — and 
send  it  me  for  my  information.  Every  word 
a  man  has  to  say  is  valuable  to  the  public  now; 
and  thus  you  will  at  once  gratify  your  friend, 
nay,  instruct,  and  either  exhilarate  him  or  force 
him  to  be  resigned, — -and  awaken  the  minds  of 
the  people. 

I  have  no  spirits  to  write  what  I  do  not 
know  whether  you  will  care  much  about:  I 
know  well,  that  if  I  were  in  great  misery,  po- 
verty, &c.,  you  would  think  of  nothing  else 
but  how  to  amuse  and  relieve  me.  You  omit 

me  if  I  am  prosperous. 

*  *  *  * 

I  could  laugh  if  I  found  a  joke,  in  order  to 
put  you  in  good-humour  with  me  after  my 


MR.  SHELLEY.  399 

scolding  ; — in  good-humour  enough  to  write 
to  us.  *  *  *  *  *  *  Affectionate  love  to 
and  from  all.  This  ought  not  only  to  be  the 
Vale  of  a  letter,  but  a  superscription  over  the 
gate  of  life. 

Your  since  Friend, 

P.  B.  SHELLEY. 

I  send  you  a  sonnet.  I  don't  expect  you  to 
publish  it,  but  you  may  show  it  to  whom  you 
please. 


LETTER  VII. 

December,  1819. 
MY  DEAR  FRIEND, 

Two  letters,  both  bearing  date  Oct.  20,  ar- 
rive on  the  same  day : — one  is  always  glad  of 
twins. 

We  hear  of  a  box  arrived  at  Genoa  with 
books  and  clothes ;  it  must  be  yours.  Mean- 
while the  babe  is  wrapped  in  flannel  petticoats, 
and  we  get  on  with  him  as  we  can.  He  is 
small,  healthy,  and  pretty.  Mary  is  recovering 
rapidly.  Marianne,  I  hope,  is  quite  recovered. 

You  do  not  tell  me  whether  you  have  re- 


400  MR.  SHELLEY. 

ceived  my  lines  on  the  Manchester  affair. 
They  are  of  the  exotic  species,  and  are  meant, 
not  for  "  The  Indicator,"  but  "  The  Examiner." 
I  would  send  for  the  former,  if  you  like,  some 
letters  on  such  subjects  of  art  as  suggest  them- 
selves in  Italy.  Perhaps  I  will,  at  a  venture, 
send  you  a  specimen  of  what  I  mean  next  post. 
I  enclose  you  in  this  a  piece  for  "  The  Exa- 
miner ;"  or  let  it  share  the  fate,  whatever  that 
fate  may  be,  of  the  "  Mask  of  Anarchy." 

I  am  sorry  to  hear  that  you  have  employed 
yourself  in  translating  "  Aminta,"  though  I 
doubt  not  it  will  be  a  just  and  beautiful  trans- 
lation. You  ought  to  write  Amintas.  You 
ought  to  exercise  your  fancy  in  the  perpetual 

creation  of  new  forms  of  gentleness  and  beauty. 

******* 

With  respect  to  translation,  even  /  will  not 
be  seduced  by  it ;  although  the  Greek  plays, 
and  some  of  the  ideal  dramas  of  Calderon,  (with 
which  I  have  lately,  and  with  inexpressible 
wonder  and  delight,  become  acquainted,)  are 
perpetually  tempting  me  to  throw  over  their 
perfect  and  glowing  forms  the  grey  veil  of  my 
own  words.  And  you  know  me  too  well  to 


MR.  SHELLEY.  401 

suspect,  that  I  refrain  from  the  belief  that  what 
I  would  substitute  for  them  would  deserve  the 
regret  which  yours  would,  if  suppressed.  I 
have  confidence  in  my  moral  sense  alone ;  but 
that  is  a  kind  of  originality.  I  have  only  trans- 
lated the  Cyclops  of  Euripides  when  I  could 
absolutely  do  nothing  else,  and  the  Symposium 
of  Plato,  which  is  the  delight  and  astonishment 
of  all  who  read  it : — I  mean,  the  original,  or  so 
much  of  the  original  as  is  seen  in  my  transla- 
tion, not  the  translation  itself. 

***** 

I  think  I  have  an  accession  of  strength  since 
my  residence  in  Italy,  though  the  disease  itself 
in  the  side,  whatever  it  may  be,  is  not  subdued. 
Some  day  we  shall  all  return  from  Italy.  I 
fear  that  in  England  things  will  be  carried  vio- 
lently by  the  rulers,  and  that  they  will  not  have 
learned  to  yield  in  time  to  the  spirit  of  the  age. 
The  great  thing  to  do  is  to  hold  the  balance 
between  popular  impatience  and  tyrannical  ob- 
stinacy ;  to  inculcate  with  fervour  both  the 
right  of  resistance  and  the  duty  of  forbearance. 
You  know,  my  principles  incite  me  to  take  all 
the  good  I  can  get  in  politics,  for  ever  aspiring 

VOL.  i.  2  D 


402  MR.  SHELLEY. 

to  something  more.  I  am  one  of  those  whom 
nothing  will  fully  satisfy,  but  who  am  ready  to 
be  partially  satisfied  by  all  that  is  practicable. 
We  shall  see.f 

Give  Bessy  a  thousand  thanks  from  me  for 
writing  out  in  that  pretty  neat  hand  your  kind 
and  powerful  defence.  Ask  what  she  would 
like  best  from  Italian  land.  We  mean  to 
bring  you  all  something ;  and  Mary  and  I  have 
been  wondering  what  it  shall  be.  Do  you, 

each  of  you,  choose. 

******* 

Adieu,  my  dear  friend, 

Your's  affectionately  ever, 

P.  B.  S. 


LETTER  VIII. 

Pisa,  August  26th,  1821. 
MY   DEAREST    FRIEND, 

Since  I  last  wrote  to  you,  I  have  been  on  a 
visit  to  Lord  Byron  at  Ravenna.     The  result 

t  Mr.  Shelley  would  have  been  pleased  to  see  the  change 
that  took  place  under  the  administration  of  Mr.  Canning, — 
a  change,  which  is  here  described  by  anticipation. 


MR.  SHELLEY.  403 

of  this  visit  was  a  determination  on  his  part  to 
come  and  live  at  Pisa,  and  I  have  taken  the 
finest  palace  on  the  Lung'  Arno  for  him.  But 
the  material  part  of  my  visit  consists  in  a  mes- 
sage which  he  desires  me  to  give  you,  and 
which  I  think  ought  to  add  to  your  determi- 
nation— for  such  a  one  I  hope  you  have  form- 
ed— of  restoring  your  shattered  health  and 
spirits  by  a  migration  to  these  "  regions  mild 
of  calm  and  serene  air." 

He  proposes  that  you  should  come  and  go 
shares  with  him  and  me,  in  a  periodical  work, 
to  be  conducted  here;  in  which  each  of  the 
contracting  parties  should  publish  all  their  ori- 
ginal compositions,  and  share  the  profits.  He 
proposed  it  to  Moore,  but  for  some  reason  it 
was  never  brought  to  bear.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  profits  of  any  scheme  in  which 
you  and  Lord  Byron  engage,  must,  from  va- 
rious yet  co-operating  reasons,  be  very  great. 
As  to  myself,  I  am,  for  the  present,  only  a 
sort  of  link  between  you  and  him,  until  you 
can  know  each  other  and  effectuate  the  ar- 
rangement ;  since  (to  entrust  you  with  a  secret 
which,  for  your  sake,  I  withhold  from  Lord 
2  D  2 


404  Mil.  SHELLEY. 

Byron,)  nothing  would  induce  me  to  share 
in  the  profits,  and  still  less  in  the  borrowed 
splendour,  of  such  a  partnership.*  You  and 
he,  in  different  manners,  would  be  equal,  and 
would  bring,  in  a  different  manner,  but  in  the 
same  proportion,  equal  stocks  of  reputation 
and  success :  do  not  let  my  frankness  with 
you,  nor  my  belief  that  you  deserve  it  more 
than  Lord  Byron,  have  the  effect  of  deterring 
you  from  assuming  a  station  in  modern  litera- 
ture, which  the  universal  voice  of  my  contem- 
poraries forbids  me  either  to  stoop  or  aspire  to. 
I  am,  and  I  desire  to  be,  nothing. 

I  did  not  ask  Lord  Byron  to  assist  me  in 
sending  a  remittance  for  your  journey ;  be- 
cause there  are  men,  however  excellent,  from 
whom  we  would  never  receive  an  obligation,  in 
the  worldly  sense  of  the  word ;  and  I  am  as 
jealous  for  my  friend  as  for  myself.  I,  as  you 
know,  have  it  not :  but  I  suppose  that  at  last 
I  shall  make  up  an  impudent  face,  and  ask 

*  Mr.  Shelley  afterwards  altered  his  mind  ;  but  he  had  a 
reserved  intention  underneath  it,  which  he  would  have  en- 
deavoured to  put  in  practice,  had  his  friend  allowed  him. 


MR.  SHELLEY.  405 

Horace  Smith  to  add  to  the  many  obligations 
he  has  conferred  on  me.  I  know  I  need  only 
ask. 

I  think  I  have  never  told  you  how  very 
much  I  like  your  Amyntas ;  it  almost  recon- 
ciles me  to  Translations.  In  another  sense,  I 
still  demur.  You  might  have  written  another 
such  poem  as  the  "  Nymphs,"  with  no  great 
access  of  effort.*  I  am  full  of  thoughts  and 

*  In  one  of  Lord  Byron's  letters,  having  a  quarrel  with  the 
memory  of  Mr.  Shelley,  and  being  angry  with  me  for  loving 
it  so  entirely,  his  Lordship  tells  me  that  I  was  mistaken  if  I 
thought  Mr.  Shelley  entertained  a  very  high  opinion  of 
my  poetry.  I  answered,  that  I  had  already  had  the  mor- 
tification of  making  that  discovery  ;  upon  which'he  express- 
ed his  vexation  at  having  told  it  me.  I  did  not  add,  that  I 
believed  Mr.  Shelley's  opinion  of  my  poetry  to  have  decreas- 
ed since  his  becoming  used  to  his  Lordship's  libels  of  his 
"  friends  all  round,"  and  that  he  had  latterly  exhibited  an 
uneasy  suspicion  that  his  intimacy  had  had  an  ill  effect  upon 
his  kindlier  views  of  things  in  general.  But  I  must  own, 
that  I  never  looked  upon  Mr.  Shelley's  real  opinion  of  my 
poetry  as  any  thing  very  great ;  though  his  affection  for  me, 
and  his  sympathy  with  the  world  I  lived  in,  poetical  as  well 
as  political,  sometimes  led  him  to  persuade  himself  otherwise. 
I  suspect  he  had  a  very  accurate  notion  of  it ;  greater  than 
what  vulgar  critics  would  think  just,  but  as  little  as  a  due 
appreciation  of  poetry,  properly  so  called,  could  admit. 


406  MR.  SHELLEY. 

plans,  and  should  do  something  if  the  feeble 
and  irritable  frame  which  incloses  it  was  willing 
to  obey  the  spirit.  I  fancy  that  then  I  should 
do  great  things.  Before  this  you  will  have 
seen  "  Adonais."  Lord  Byron,  I  suppose  from 
modesty  on  account  of  his  being  mentioned  in 
it,  did  not  say  a  word  of  "  Adonais,"  though 
he  was  loud  in  his  praise  of  "  Prometheus :" 
and,  what  you  will  not  agree  with  him  in,  cen- 
sure of  the  "  Cenci."  Certainly,  if  "  Marino 
Faliero"  is  a  drama,  the  "  Cenci"  is  not :  but 
that  between  ourselves.  Lord  Byron  is  re- 
formed, as  far  as  gallantry  goes,  and  lives  with 
a  beautiful  and  sentimental  Italian  lady,  who 
is  as  much  attached  to  him  as  may  be.  I  trust 
greatly  to  his  intercourse  with  you,  for  his 
creed  to  become  as  pure  as  he  thinks  his  con- 
duct is.  He  has  many  generous  and  exalted 
qualities,  but  the  canker  of  aristocracy  wants 
to  be  cut  out. 


JOH-N.   K'EATI 


MR.  KEATS. 

WITH   A   CRITICISM   ON   HIS    WRITINGS. 


MR.  KEATS,  when  he  died,  had  just  com- 
pleted his  four-and-twentieth  year.  He  was 
under  the  middle  height ;  and  his  lower  limbs 
were  small  in  comparison  with  the  upper,  but 
neat  and  well-turned.  His  shoulders  were 
very  broad  for  his  size  :  he  had  a  face,  in  which 
energy  and  sensibility  were  remarkably  mixed 
up,  an  eager  power  checked  and  made  patient 
by  ill  health.  Every  feature  was  at  once 
strongly  cut,  and  delicately  alive.  If  there 
was  any  faulty  expression,  it  was  in  the  mouth, 
which  was  not  without  something  of  a  charac- 
ter of  pugnacity.  The  face  was  rather  long 


408  MK,  KEATS. 

than  otherwise ;  the  upper  lip  projected  a  little 
over  the  under  ;  the  chin  was  bold,  the  cheeks 
sunken  ;  the  eyes  mellow  and  glowing ;  large, 
dark  and  sensitive.  At  the  recital  of  a  noble 
action,  or  a  beautiful  thought,  they  would 
suffuse  with  tears,  and  his  mouth  trembled. 
In  this,  there  was  ill  health  as  well  as  imagina- 
tion, for  he  did  not  like  these  betrayals  of  emo- 
tion ;  and  he  had  great  personal  as  well  as 
moral  courage.  His  hair,  of  a  brown  colour, 
was  fine,  and  hung  in  natural  ringlets.  The 
head  was  a  puzzle  for  the  phrenologists,  being 
remarkably  small  in  the  skull ;  a  singularity 
which  he  had  in  common  with  Lord  Byron  and 
Mr.  Shelley,  none  of  whose  hats  I  could  get 
on.  Mr.  Keats  was  sensible  of  the  dispropor- 
tion above  noticed,  between  his  upper  and 
lower  extremities ;  and  he  would  look  at  his 
hand,  which  was  faded,  and  swollen  in  the 
veins,  and  say  it  was  the  hand  of  a  man  of  fifty. 
He  was  a  seven  months'  child :  his  mother, 
who  was  a  lively  woman,  passionately  fond  of 
amusement,  is  supposed  to  have  hastened  her 
death  by  too  great  an  inattention  to  hours 


Mil.  KEATS.  409 

and  seasons.     Perhaps  she  hastened  that  of  her 
son. 

Mr.  Keats's  origin  was  of  the  humblest  des- 
cription ;  he  was  born  October  29,  1796,  at  a 
livery-stables  in  Moorfields,  of  which  his  grand- 
father was  the  proprietor.  I  am  very  incurious, 
and  did  not  know  this  till  the  other  day.  He 
never  spoke  of  it,  perhaps  out  of  a  personal 
soreness  which  the  world  had  exasperated. 
After  receiving  the  rudiments  of  a  classical 
education  at  Mr.  Clarke's  school  at  Enfield,  he 
was  bound  apprentice  to  Mr.  Hammond,  a 
surgeon,  in  Church-street,  Edmonton  ;  and  his 
enemies  having  made  a  jest  even  of  this,  he 
did  not  like  to  be  reminded  of  it ;  at  once  dis- 
daining them  for  their  meanness,  and  himself 
for  being  sick  enough  to  be  moved  by  them. 
Mr.  Clarke,  junior,  his  schoolmaster's  son,  a 
reader  of  genuine  discernment,  had  encouraged 
with  great  warmth  the  genius  that  he  saw  in 
the  young  poet ;  and  it  was  to  Mr.  Clarke  I 
was  indebted  for  my  acquaintance  with  him. 
I  shall  never  forget  the  impression  made  upon 
me  by  the  exuberant  specimens  of  genuine 


410  MR.   KEATS. 

though  young  poetry  that  were  laid  before 
me,  and  .the  promise  of  which  was  seconded 
by  the  fine  fervid  countenance  of  the  writer. 
We  became  intimate  on  the  spot,  and  I  found 
the  young  poet's  heart  as  warm  as  his  imagina- 
tion. We  read  and  walked  together,  and  used 
to  write  verses  of  an  evening  upon  a  given 
subject.  No  imaginative  pleasure  was  left  un- 
noticed by  us,  or  unenjoyed ;  from  the  recol- 
lection of  the  bards  and  patriots  of  old,  to  the 
luxury  of  a  summer  rain  at  our  window,  or  the 
clicking  of  the  coal  in  winter-time.  Not  long 
afterwards,  having  the  pleasure  of  entertaining 
at  dinner  Mr.  Godwin,  Mr.  Hazlitt,  and  Mr. 
Basil  Montague,  I  showed  them  the  verses  of 
my  young  friend,  and  they  were  pronounced 
to  be  as  extraordinary  as  I  thought  them.  One 
of  them  was  that  noble  sonnet  on  first  reading 
Chapman's  Homer,  which  terminates  with  so 
energetic  a  calmness,  and  which  completely  an- 
nounced the  new  poet  taking  possession.  As 
Mr.  Keats's  first  juvenile  volume  is  not  much 
known,  I  will  repeat  the  sonnet  here,  as  a  re- 
markable instance  of  a  vein  prematurely  mas- 
culine. 


MR.  KEATS.  411 

ON    FIRST    LOOKING    INTO  CHAPMAN'S    HOMER. 

Much  have  I  travelled  in  the  realms  of  gold, 

And  many  goodly  states  and  kingdoms  seen  ; 

Round  many  western  islands  have  I  been, 
Which  bards  in  fealty  to  Apollo  hold ; 
Oft  of  one  wide  expanse  had  I  been  told, 

That  deep-brow'd  Homer  ruled  as  his  demesne  ; 

Yet  did  I  never  breathe  its  pure  serene, 
Till  I  heard  Chapman  speak  out  loud  and  bold. 
Then  felt  I  like  some  watcher  of  the  skies, 

When  a  new  planet  swims  into  his  ken, 
Or  like  stout  Cortez,  when  with  eagle  eyes 

He  star'd  at  the  Pacific — and  all  his  men 
Look'd  at  each  other  with  a  wild  surmise, 

Silent,  upon  a  peak  in  Darien. 

Modern  criticism  has  made  the  public  well  ac- 
quainted with  the  merits  of  Chapman.  The 
retainers  of  some  schools  of  poetry  may  not 
see  very  far  into  his  old  oracular  style;  but 
the  poets  themselves  (the  true  test  of  poetical 
merit)  have  always  felt  the  impression.  Waller 
professed  that  he  could  never  read  him  without 
a  movement  of  transport ;  and  Pope,  in  the 
preface  to  his  translation,  says  that  he  was  ani- 
mated by  a  daring  fiery  spirit,  something  like 
what  we  may  conceive  of  Homer  himself  "  be- 


412  MR.   KEATS. 

fore  he  arrived  at  years  of  discretion."  Chap- 
man certainly  stands  upon  no  ceremony.  He 
blows  as  rough  a  blast  as  Achilles  could  have 
desired  to  hear,  very  different  from  the  soft 
music  of  a  parade.  "  The  whales  exult"  under 
his  Neptune,  playing  unwieldy  gambols ;  and 
his  Ulysses  issues  out  of  the  shipwreck, 
"  soaked  to  the  very  heart ;"  tasting  of  sea- weeds 
and  salt-water,  in  a  style  that  does  not  at  all 
mince  the  matter,  or  consult  the  proprieties  of 
Brighton.  Mr.  Keats's  epithets  of  "  loud  and 
bold,"  showed  that  he  understood  him  tho- 
roughly. The  men  of  Cortez  staring  at  each 
other,  and  the  eagle  eyes  of  their  leader  looking 
out  upon  the  Pacific,  have  been  thought  too 
violent  a  picture  for  the  dignity  of  the  occa- 
sion ;  but  it  is  a  case  that  requires  the  excep- 
tion. Cortez's  "  eagle  eyes"  are  a  piece  of 
historical  painting,  as  the  reader  may  see  by 
Titian's  portrait  of  him.  The  last  line, 

"  Silent — upon  a  peak  in  Darien/' 

makes  the  mountain  a  part  of  the  spectacle, 
and  supports  the  emotion  of  the  rest  of  the 
sonnet  upon  a  basis  of  gigantic  tranquillity. 


MR.  KEATS.  413 

The  volume  containing  this  sonnet  was  pub- 
lished in  1817,  when  the  author  was  in  his 
twenty-first  year.  The  poem  with  which  it 
begins,  was  suggested  to  him  by  a  delightful 
summer- day,  as  he  stood  beside  the  gate  that 
leads  from  the  Battery  on  Hampstead  Heath 
into  a  field  by  Caen  Wood  ;  and  the  last  poem, 
the  one  "On  Sleep  and  Poetry,"  was  occa- 
sioned by  his  sleeping  in  one  of  the  cottages 
in  the  Vale  of  Health,  the  first  one  that  fronts 
the  valley,  beginning  from  the  same  quarter. 
I  mention  these  things,  which  now  look  tri- 
vial, because  his  readers  will  not  think  them 
so  twenty  years  hence.  It  was  in  the  beau- 
tiful lane,  running  from  the  road  between 
Hampstead  and  Highgate  to  the  foot  of  High- 
gate  Hill,  that,  meeting  me  one  day,  he  first 
gave  me  the  volume.  If  the  admirer  of  Mr. 
Keats's  poetry  does  not  know  the  lane  in  ques- 
tion, he  ought  to  become  acquainted  with  it, 
both  on  his  author's  account  and  its  own.  It 
has  been  also  paced  by  Mr.  Lamb  and  Mr. 
Hazlitt,  and  frequented,  like  the  rest  of  the 
beautiful  neighbourhood,  by  Mr.  Coleridge ; 
so  that  instead  of  Millfield  Lane,  which  is  the 


414  MK.  KEATS. 

name  it  is  known  by  "on  earth,"  it  has  some- 
times been  called  Poets'  Lane,  which  is  an 
appellation  it  richly  deserves.  It  divides  the 
grounds  of  Lords  Mansfield  and  Southampton, 
running  through  trees  and  sloping  meadows, 
and  being  rich  in  the  botany  for  which  this 
part  of  the  neighbourhood  of  London  has 
always  been  celebrated.  I  recommend  it, 
contrary  to  the  interests  of  my  solitude;  but 
the  mischief  done  me  by  sociality  pleases  me, 
as  usual,  still  better. 

"  A  drainless  shower 

Of  light  is  poesy  ;  'tis  the  supreme  of  power  ; 
'Tis  might  half  slumb1  ring  on  its  own  right  arm." 

These  are  some  more  of  the  lines  in  a  book, 
in  which  feeble  critics  thought  they  saw  no- 
thing but  feebleness.  Here  are  four  more,  out 
of  a  profusion  of  mixed  youth  and  beauty  : — 
the  writer  is  speaking  of  some  engraved  por- 
traits, that  adorned  the  room  he  slept  in : — 

"  Great  Alfred's  too,  with  anxious,  pitying  eyes, 
As  if  he  always  listened  to  the  sighs 
Of  the  goaded  world  ;  and  Kosciusko's,  worn 
With  horrid  suff 'ranee, — mightily  forlorn." 


Mil.  KEATS.  415 

But  there  were  political  opinions  in  the  book; 
and  these  not  according  with  the  opinions  of 
the  then  government  authorities,  the  writer 
was  found  to  be  a  very  absurd  person,  and  not 
to  be  borne.  His  youth,  and  the  sincerity 
natural  to  youth,  to  say  nothing  of  personal 
predilections,  which  are  things  that  nobody 
has  a  right  to  indulge  in  but  the  affectionate 
followers  of  office,  all  told  against  instead  of 
for  him  in  the  eyes  of  a  servile  weakness, 
jealous  of  independence  in  others,  and  (to 
say  the  truth)  not  very  capable  of  discerning 
the  greatest  talent.  To  admire  and  comment 
upon  the  genius  that  two  or  three  hundred 
years  have  applauded,  and  to  discover  what 
will  partake  of  the  applause  two  or  three 
hundred  years  hence,  are  processes  of  a  very 
different  description.  Accordingly,  when  Mr. 
Keats,  in  1818,  published  his  next  volume, 
his  poetic  romance  entitled  "  Endymion," 
the  critical  authority,  then  reigning  at  the 
west  end,  showed  it  no  mercy.  What  com- 
pleted the  matter  was,  that  his  publisher, 
in  a  fright,  went  to  the  critic  to  conciliate 
him ;  as  if  the  greater  and  more  insolent  the 


416  MR.  KEATS. 

opportunity  of  trampling,  the  petty  tyrant 
would  not  be  the  happier  to  seize  it.  Mr. 
Gifford  gave  his  visitor  very  plainly  to  un- 
derstand that  such  would  be  the  case.  Such 
it  was ;  and  though  the  bookseller,  who  in 
reality  had  a  better  taste  than  the  critic,  and 
very  properly  felt  piqued  to  support  his  au- 
thor, stood  by  him  in  the  publication  of  ano- 
ther volume,  the  sale  of  both  volumes  was 
neutralized  in  that  gratuitous  acquiescence 
with  the  critics,  in  which  the  public  have 
since  learnt  not  to  be  quite  so  trusting. 

"Endymion,"  it  must  be  allowed,  was  not 
a  little  calculated  to  perplex  the  critics.  It 
was  a  wilderness  of  sweets,  but  it  was  truly 
a  wilderness ;  a  domain  of  young,  luxuriant, 
uncompromising  poetry,  where  the  "  weeds  of 
glorious  feature"  hampered  the  petty  legs  ac- 
customed to  the  lawns  and  trodden  walks,  in 
vogue  for  the  last  hundred  years ;  lawns,  as 
Johnson  says,  "  shaven  by  the  scythe,  and  le- 
velled with  the  roller ;"  walks,  which,  being 
public  property,  have  been  re-consecrated,  like 
Kensington  Gardens,  by  the  beadles  of  au- 
thority, instead  of  the  Pans  and  Sylvans.  Mr. 


MR.  KEATS.  417 

Wordsworth  knew  better  than  the  critics,  but 
he  did  not  choose  to  say  any  thing.  He  stood 
upon  equivocal  footing  himself,  his  greatest 
poetical  recommendation  arising  from  the  most 
prosaical  action  of  his  life,  to  wit,  his  accept- 
ance of  the  office  of  Distributor  of  Stamps. 
Mr.  Keats,  meeting  him  one  day  at  Mr.  Hay- 
don's, — the  same  day  when  Lamb  said  that 
good  thing  about  Voltaire*, — our  young  poet 
was  induced  to  repeat  to  the  older  one  the 
Hymn  to  Pan  out  of  "  Endymion ;"  upon 
which  Mr.  Wordsworth  said  it  was  a  "  very 
pretty  piece  of  Paganism."  A  new  poet  had 
come  up,  who 

"  Had  sight  of  Proteus  coming  from  the  sea :" 

and  certainly  "  the  world  was  not  too  much 
with  him."  But  this,  which  is  a  thing  desired 
by  Lake  Poets  in  their  abstractions,  is  a  pre- 
sumption in  the  particular,  and  not  to  be  coun- 
tenanced. "  Such  sights  as  youthful  poets 
dream"  must  cease,  when  their  predecessors 
grow  old ;  when  they  get  jealous  as  fading 

*  See  the  Memoir  of  Mr.  Lamb. 
VOL.  I.  2    E 


418  MR.  KEATS. 

beauties,  and  have  little  annuities  for  behaving 
themselves. 

The  great  fault  of  "  Endymion,"  next  to  its 
unpruned  luxuriance,  (or  before  it,  rather,  for 
it  was  not  a  fault  on  the  right  side,)  was  the 
wilfulness  of  its  rhymes.  The  author  had  a 
just  contempt  for  the  monotonous  termination 
of  every-day  couplets ;  he  broke  up  his  lines 
in  order  to  distribute  the  rhyme  properly ;  but 
going  only  upon  the  ground  of  his  contempt, 
and  not  having  yet  settled  with  himself  any 
principle  of  versification,  the  very  exuberance 
of  his  ideas  led  him  to  make  use  of  the  first 
rhymes  that  offered ;  so  that,  by  a  new  meet- 
ing of  extremes,  the  effect  was  as  artificial, 
and  much  more  obtrusive  than  the  one  under 
the  old  system.  Dryden  modestly  confess- 
ed, that  a  rhyme  had  often  helped  him  to  a 
thought.  Mr.  Keats,  in  the  tyranny  of  his 
wealth,  forced  his  rhymes  to  help  him,  whe- 
ther they  would  or  not ;  and  they  obeyed  him, 
in  the  most  singular  manner,  with  equal  promp- 
titude and  ungainness.  "  Endymion,"  too,  was 
not  without  its  faults  of  weakness,  as  well  as  of 
power.  Mr.  Keats's  natural  tendency  to  plea- 


MB.  KEATS.  419 

sure,  as  a  poet,  sometimes  degenerated,  by  rea- 
son of  his  ill  health,  into  a  poetical  effeminacy. 
There  are  symptoms  of  it  here  and  there  in 
all  his  productions,  not  excepting  the  gigan- 
tic grandeur  of  Hyperion.  His  lovers  grow 
"  faint"  with  the  sight  of  their  mistresses ;  and 
Apollo,  when  he  is  superseding  his  divine 
predecessor,  and  undergoing  his  transforma- 
tion into  a  Divus  Major,  suffers  a  little  too 
exquisitely  among  his  lilies.  But  Mr.  Keats 
was  aware  of  this  contradiction  to  the  real 
energy  of  his  nature,  and  prepared  to  get  rid 
of  it.  What  is  more,  he  said  as  much  in  the 
Preface  to  "  Endymion,"  and  in  a  manner  cal- 
culated to  conciliate  all  critics  who  were  worth 
touching  his  volume  ;  but  not  such  were  those, 
from  whom  the  public  were  to  receive  their 
notions  of  him.  Let  the  reader  see  it,  and 
wish,  if  he  has  hitherto  read  nothing  but  criti- 
cism upon  him,  that  he  had  seen  it  before. 

"  Knowing,"  says  Mr.  Keats,  "  within  my- 
self, the  mariner  in  which  this  poem  has  been 
produced,  it  is  not  without  a  feeling  of  regret 
that  I  make  it  public. 

"  What  manner  I  mean  will  be  quite  clear 
2  E  2 


420  JVJR.  KEATS. 

to  the  reader,  who  must  soon  perceive  great 
inexperience,  immaturity,  and  every  error  de- 
noting a  feverish  attempt  rather  than  a  deed 
accomplished.  The  two  first  books,  and  in- 
deed the  two  last,  I  feel  sensible,  are  not  of 
such  completion  as  to  warrant  their  passing  the 
press ;  nor  should  they,  if  I  thought  a  year's 
castigation  would  do  them  any  good ;  it  will 
not ;  the  foundations  are  too  sandy.  It  is  just 
that  this  youngster  should  die  away :  a  sad 
thought  for  me,  if  I  had  not  some  hope  that 
while  it  is  dwindling  I  may  be  plotting,  and 
fitting  myself  for  verses  fit  to  live. 

"  This  may  be  speaking  too  presumptuously, 
and  may  deserve  a  punishment :  but  no  feeling 
man  will  be  forward  to  inflict  it:  he  will  leave 
me  alone,  with  the  conviction  that  there  is  not 
a  fiercer  hell  than  the  failure  in  a  great  object. 
This  is  not  written  with  the  least  atom  of  pur- 
pose to  forestall  criticisms  of  course,  but  from 
the  desire  I  have  to  conciliate  men  who  are 
competent  to  look,  and  who  do  look  with  a 
zealous  eye,  to  the  honour  of  English  literature. 

"  The  imagination  of  a  boy  is  healthy,  and 
the  mature  imagination  of  man  is  healthy;  but 


MR.  KEATS.  421 

there  is  a  space  between,  in  which  the  soul 
is  in  a  ferment,  the  character  undecided,  the 
way  of  life  uncertain,  the  ambition  thick-sight- 
ed :  thence  proceed  mawkishness,  and  all  the 
thousand  bitters  which  those  men  I  speak  of 
must  necessarily  taste  in  going  over  the  follow- 
ing pages. 

"  I  hope  I  have  not  in  too  late  a  day  touched 
the  beautiful  mythology  of  Greece,  and  dulled 
its  brightness  :  for  I  wish  to  try  it  once  more 
before  I  bid  it  farewell. 

"  Teignmouth,  April  10,  1818." 

An  organized  system  of  abuse  had  come  up 
at  this  period,  of  a  nature  with  which  it  was 
thought  no  department  of  literature  had  hither- 
to been  polluted.  The  mistake  was  natural, 
after  a  long  interval  of  decorum ;  but  similar 
abuses  have  always  taken  place,  when  society 
was  not  better  occupied,  or  when  jealousy 
and  party  spleen  paid  an  adversary  the  com- 
pliment of  thinking  itself  sufficiently  provoked. 
A  shelf  full  of  scandal  might  be  collected 
against  Dryden  and  Pope.  "  The  life  of  a 
wit,"  said  Steele,  "  is  a  warfare  upon  earth ;" 


Mil.  KEATS. 

and  he  had  good  reason  to  know  it.  There 
was  a  man  of  the  name  of  Baker,  who  made  it 
his  business  to  assail  him  with  criticisms  and 
personalities.  The  wits  themselves  too  often 
assailed  one  another,  and  in  a  manner  worthy 
of  their  calumniators,  of  which  there  is  humi- 
liating evidence  in  the  lives  of  Addison  and 
Swift.  Even  Shakspeare  was  not  without  his 
libeller.  Somebody  in  his  time  accused  him, 
in  common  with  his  fellow  play-wrights,  of 
irreligion, — nay,  of  personal  arrogance,  and  of 
taking  himself  for  the  only  "  Shake-scene"  of 
the  theatre.  The  new  taste  in  calumny,  how- 
ever, surpassed  all  the  other,  by  its  avowed 
contempt  for  truth  and  decency.  It  seemed  to 
think,  that  by  an  excess  of  impudence  it  would 
confound  objection,  and  even  bully  itself  out  of 
the  last  lingerings  of  conscience;  and  the  public, 
who  were  mean  enough  to  enjoy  what  they 
condemned,  enabled  the  plot  to  succeed.  The 
lowest  and  falsest  personalities  were  a  trifle. 
Privacies  were  invaded,  in  a  way  to  make  the 
stoutest  hearts  tremble  for  the  gentlest  and 
most  pitiable ;  and  with  an  instinct  common  to 
the  despicable,  every  delicacy  was  taken  advan- 


MR.  KEATS.  423 

tage  of,  that  could  secure  impunity  to  offence. 
Even  cowardice  itself  was  avowed  as  a  thing 
profitable.  In  short,  never  before  was  seen 
such  a  conspiracy  between  a  reckless  love  of 
importance,  cold  calculation,  and  party  and 
private  resentment.  Not  being  tied  down  by 
hard  logic  or  Calvinism,  the  Scotch,  it  was  said, 
were  resolved  to  show  how  difficult  it  was 
for  them  to  understand  any  other  principle. 
Having  no  throats  to  cut  as  Jacobites  or  Pu- 
ritans, they  must  run  a  muck  as  Drawcansirs 
in  literature.  Not  being  able  to  be  Keevers  of 
Westburn  Flat,  they  were  to  plunder  people 
of  their  characters,  and  warm  the  chill  poverty 
of  their  imaginations  at  the  blushes  and  dis- 
tresses of  private  Ufe.'f  Unfortunately,  some 
of  the  knaves  were  not  destitute  of  talent :  the 
younger  were  tools  of  older  ones,  who  kept 

out  of  sight.          *  *  *  *  * 

****** 

Sir  Walter  Scott  calls  this,  I  believe,  a  re- 
action in  favour  of  legitimate  ideas.  Legitimate 

t  I  confess  that  one  Burns  or  one  Thomson  is  enough  to 
sweeten  all  Scotland,  in  my  imagination ;  which  is  saying  a 
good  deal,  after  what  Edinburgh  has  done  for  it. 


MB.  KEATS. 

ideas  are  obliged  to  him  for  the  compliment 
and  are  very  much  his  humble  servants :  but  I 
doubt  whether  the  Government  of  1828  will 
agree  with  him,  as  the  Pittites  did ;  and  a  pre- 
sent Government  is  a  great  thing,  as  the  Re- 
viewers have  found  out.  Your  absent  deity  is 
nothing  to  your  prcesens  divus. 

The  contrivers  of  this  system  of  calumny 
thought  that  it  suited  their  views,  trading, 
political,  and  personal,  to  attack  the  writer  of 
the  present  work.  They  did  so,  and  his  friends 
with  him,  Mr.  Keats  among  the  number.  Had 
the  hostility  been  fair,  I  was  a  fair  object  of 
attack,  having  not  only  taken  a  warm  part  in 
politics,  but  in  a  very  thoughtless  and  imma- 
ture spirit  attacked  people  critically,  Sir  Wal- 
ter among  them.  But  then  I  did  it  openly : 
my  books  were  not  published  without  a  name ; 
and  word  was  always  left  at  the  Examiner 
office,  where  I  was  to  be  found,  in  case  ex- 
planation was  demanded  of  any  thing  I  wrote 
in  the  paper.  I  therefore  treated  these  anony- 
mous assailants  with  indifference  in  the  first 
instance ;  and  certainly  should  not  have  noticed 
them  at  all,  had  not  another  person  chosen  to 


MR.  KEATS.  425 

call  upon  them  in  my  name.     Circumstances 
then  induced  me  to  make  a  more  peremptory 
call:  it  was  not  answered;  and  the  two  par- 
ties retreated, — they  into  their  meanness,  and  I 
into  my  contempt.     I  have  since  regretted,  on 
Mr.   Keats's   account,   that   I   did   not  take  a 
more  active  part.     The  scorn  which  the  pub- 
lic and  they  would  feel  for  one  another,  before 
long,  was  evident  enough ;  but,  in  the  mean- 
time, an  injury,  in  every  point  of  view,  was 
done  to  a  young  and  sensitive  nature,  to  which 
I  ought  to  have  been  more  alive.     The  truth 
was,  I  never  thought  about  it ;  nor,  I  believe, 
did  he,  with  a  view  to  my  taking  any  farther 
notice.     I  was  in  the  habit,  though  a  public 
man,  of  living  in  a  world  of  abstractions  of 
my  own,  and  I  regarded  him  as  a  nature  still 
more  abstracted,  and  sure  of  unsought  renown. 
Though  a  politician,  (such  as  I  was,)  I  had 
scarcely  a  political  work  in  my  library.     Spen- 
sers  and  Arabian  Tales  filled  up  the  shelves, 
as  they  do  now ;  and  Spenser  himself  was  not 
a  remoter  spirit  in  my  eyes,  from  all  the  com- 
monplaces of  life,  than  my  new  friend.     Our 
whole  talk  was  made  up  of  idealisms.     In  the 


Mil.  KEATS. 

streets  we  were  in  the  thick  of  the  old  woods. 
I  little  suspected  at  that  time,  as  I  did  after- 
wards, that  the  hunters  had  struck  him ;  that 
a  delicate  organization,  which  already  antici- 
pated a  premature  death,  made  him  feel  his 
ambition  thwarted  by  these  fellows ;  and  that 
the  very  impatience  of  being  impatient  was 
resented  by  him,  and  preyed  on  his  mind. 
Had  he  said  but  a  word  to  me  on  the  sub- 
ject, I  would  have  kept  no  measures  with 
them.  There  were  delicacies  on  other  sub- 
jects, which  I  had  leave  to  merge  in  greater 
ones,  had  I  chosen  it ;  and,  in  a  case  like  this, 
it  should  have  been  done. 

In  every  thing  but  this  reserve,  which  was 
encouraged  by  my  own  incuriousness,  (for  I 
have  no  reserve  myself  with  those  whom  I 
love,) — in  every  other  respect  but  this,  Mr. 
Keats  and  I  were  friends  of  the  old  stamp, 
between  whom  there  was  no  such  thing  as 
obligation,  except  the  pleasure  of  it.  He  en- 
joyed the  usual  privilege  of  greatness  with  all 
whom  he  knew,  rendering  it  delightful  to  be 
obliged  by  him,  and  an  equal,  but  not  a  greater 


MR.  KEATS.  427 

delight,  to  oblige.  It  was  a  pleasure  to  his 
friends  to  have  him  in  their  houses,  and  he  did 
not  grudge  it.  When  "  Endymion"  was  pub- 
lished, he  was  living  at  Hampstead  with  his 
friend  Mr.  Charles  Brown,  who  attended  him 
most  affectionately  through  a  severe  illness, 
and  with  whom,  to  their  great  mutual  enjoy- 
ment, he  had  taken  a  journey  into  Scotland. 
The  lakes  and  mountains  of  the  North  delighted 
him  exceedingly.  He  beheld  them  with  an 
epic  eye.  Afterwards,  he  went  into  the  South, 
and  luxuriated  in  the  Isle  of  Wight.  On  Mr. 
Brown's  leaving  England,  a  second  time,  to 
visit  the  same  quarter,  Mr.  Keats,  who  was  too 
ill  to  accompany  him,  came  to  reside  with  me, 
when  his  last  and  best  volume  of  poems  ap- 
peared, containing  Lamia,  Isabella,  the  Eve  of 
St.  Agnes,  and  the  noble  fragment  of  Hyperion. 
I  remember  Charles  Lamb's  delight  and  admi- 
ration on  reading  this  work  ;  how  pleased  he 
was  with  the  designation  of  Mercury  as  "  the 
star  of  Lethe"  (rising,  as  it  were,  and  glittering, 
as  he  came  upon  that  pale  region) ;  with  the 
fine  daring  anticipation  in  that  passage  of  the 
second  poem, — 


MR.  KEATS. 

"  So  the  two  brothers  and  their  murdered  man 
Rode  past  fair  Florence ;" 

and  with  the  description,  at  once  delicate  and 
gorgeous,  of  Agnes  praying  beneath  the 
painted  window.  This  last  (which  should  be 
called,  par  excellence,  the  Prayer  at  the  Painted 
Window)  has  been  often  quoted ;  but  for  the 
benefit  of  those  who  are  not  yet  acquainted 
with  the  author's  genius,  farther  than  by  means 
of  these  pages,  I  cannot  resist  repeating  it. 
It  throws  a  light  upon  one's  book. 

"  A  casement  high  and  triple-arch'd  there  was, 
All  garlanded  with  carven  imag'ries 
Of  fruits,  and  flowers,  and  bunches  of  knot-grass, 
And  diamonded  with  panes  of  quaint  device, 
Innumerable  of  stains  and  splendid  dyes, 
As  are  the  tiger-moth's  deep-damask'd  wings  ; 
And  in  the  midst,  'mong  thousand  heraldries, 
And  twilight  saints,  and  dim  emblazonings, 
A  shielded  scutcheon  blush'd  with  blood  of  queens 
and  kings. 

"  Full  on  this  casement  shone  the  wintry  moon, 
And  threw  warm  gules  on  Madeline's  fair  breast, 
As  down  she  knelt  for  heaven's  grace  and  boon ; 
Rose  bloom  fell  on  her  hands,  together  press'd, 


MR.  KEATS.  429 

And  on  her  silver  cross  soft  amethyst, 
And  on  her  hair  a  glory,  like  a  saint : 
She  seem'd  a  splendid  angel,  newly  dress'd, 
Save  wings,  for  heaven." 

The  whole  volume  is  worthy  of  this  passage. 
Mr.  Keats  is  no  half-painter,  who  has  only  dis- 
tinct ideas  occasionally,  and  fills  up  the  rest 
with  commonplaces.  He  feels  all  as  he  goes. 
In  his  best  pieces,  every  bit  is  precious ;  and 
he  knew  it,  and  laid  it  on  as  carefully  as  Titian 
or  Giorgione.  Take  a  few  more  samples 

LOVERS. 

"  Parting  they  seem'd  to  tread  upon  the  air, 
Twin  roses  by  the  zephyr  blown  apart, 

Only  to  meet  again  more  close,  and  share 
The  inward  fragrance  of  each  other's  heart." 

BEES. 

"  Bees,  the  little  almsmen  of  spring  bowers." 

A    DELICATE    SUPPER. 

"  And  still  she  slept  an  azure-lidded  sleep 
In  blanched  linen  smooth  and  lavender 'd, 
While  he  from  forth  the  closet  brought  a  heap 
Of  candied  apple,  quince,  and  plum,  and  gourd  ; 


430  MR.  KEATS. 

With  jellies  soother  than  the  creamy  curd, 
And  lucent  syrops,  tinct  with  cinnamon  ; 
Manna  and  dates,  in  argosy  transferr'd 
From  Fez  :  and  spiced  dainties,  every  one, 
From  silken  Samarcand  to  cedard  Lebanon." 

These  are  stanzas,  for  which  Persian  kings 
would  fill  a  poet's  mouth  with  gold.  I  re- 
member Mr.  Keats  reading  these  lines  to  me 
with  great  relish  and  particularity,  conscious 
of  what  he  had  set  forth.  The  melody  is  as 
sweet  as  the  subject,  especially  at 

"  Lucent  syrops  tinct  with  cinnamon," 

and  the  conclusion.  Mr.  Wordsworth  would 
say  that  the  vowels  were  not  varied  enough ; 
but  Mr.  Keats  knew  where  his  vowels  were 
not  to  be  varied.  On  the  occasion  above  al- 
luded to,  Mr.  Wordsworth  found  fault  with 
the  repetition  of  the  concluding  sound  of  the 
participles  in  Shakspeare's  line  about  bees : — 

The  singing  masons  building  roofs  of  gold. 

This,  he  said,  was  a  line  which  Milton  would 
never  have  written.  Mr.  Keats  thought,  on 


MR.  KEATS.  431 

the  other  hand,  that  the  repetition  was  in 
harmony  with  the  continued  note  of  the  sing- 
ers, and  that  Shakspeare's  negligence  (if  neg- 
ligence it  was)  had  instinctively  felt  the  thing 
in  the  best  manner.  The  assertion  about  Mil- 
ton startles  one,  considering  the  tendency  of 
that  great  poet  to  subject  his  nature  to  art ;  yet 
I  have  dipped,  while  writing  this,  into  "  Para- 
dise Lost,"  and  at  the  second  chance  have  lit 
on  the  following : 

The  gray 

Dawn,  and  the  Pleiades  before  him  danced, 
Shedding  sweet  influence.     Less  bright  the  moon, 
But  opposite,  in  levelled  west,  was  set 
His  mirrour,  with  full  force  borrowing  her  light. 

The  repetition  of  the  e  in  the  fourth  line  is  an 
extreme  case  in  point,  being  monotonous  to 
express  one-ness  and  evenness.  Milton  would 
have  relished  the  supper  which  his  young  suc- 
cessor, like  a  page  for  him,  has  set  forth.  It 
was  Mr.  Keats  who  observed  to  me,  that  Mil- 
ton, in  various  parts  of  his  writings,  has  shown 
himself  a  bit  of  an  epicure,  and  loves  to  talk  of 
good  eating.  That  he  was  choice  in  his  food,  and 
set  store  by  a  good  cook,  there  is  curious  evi- 


MR.  KEATS. 

dence  to  be  found  in  the  proving  of  his  Will ;  by 
which  it  appears,  that  dining  one  day  "  in  the 
kitchen,"  he  complimented  Mrs.  Milton,  by  the 
appropriate  title  of  "  Betty,"  on  the  dish  she 
had  set  before  him ;  adding,  as  if  he  could  not 
pay  her  too  well  for  it,  "  Thou  knowest  I  have 
left  thee  all."  Henceforth  let  a  kitchen  be 
illustrious,  should  a  gentleman  choose  to  take 
a  cutlet  in  it.  But  houses  and  their  customs 
were  different  in  those  days. 

CALAMITIES    FOLLOWING    CALAMITIES. 

There  was  a  listening  fear  in  her  regard, 

As  if  calamity  had  but  begun  ; 

As  if  its  vamvard  clouds  of  evil  days 

Had  spent  their  malice,  and  the  sullen  rear 

Was  with  its  stored  thunder  labouring  up. 

This  is  out  of  the  fragment  of  "  Hyperion," 
which  is  truly  like  the  fragment  of  a  former 
world.  There  is  a  voice  in  it  grander  than 
any  that  has  been  uttered  in  these  times,  ex- 
cept in  some  of  Mr.  Wordsworth's  sonnets ; 
though  the  author,  in  a  noble  verse,  has  re- 
gretted its  inadequacy  to  his  subject. 


MR.  KEATS.  433 

Oh  how  frail 
To  that  large  utterance  of  the  early  Gods  ! 

OAKS    CHARMED    BY    THE   STARS. 

As  when  upon  a  tranced  summer-night 
Those  green-rob'd  senators  of  mighty  woods, 
Tall  oaks,  branch-charmed  by  the  earnest  star?, 
Dream,  and  so  dream  all  night  without  a  stir, 
Save  from  one  gradual  solitary  gust 
Which  comes  upon  the  silence,  and  dies  off, 
As  if  the  ebbing  air  had  but  one  wave  ; 
So  came  these  words  and  went. 

A    GOD    RECLINING    IN    SORROW. 

And  all  along  a  dismal  rack  of  clouds, 

Upon  the  boundaries  of  day  and  night, 

He  stretch'd  himself,  in  grief  and  radiance  faint. 

THE   ELDER   GODS   DETHRONED. 

Mnemosyne  was  straying  in  the  world  ; 
Far  from  her  throne  had  Phoebe  wandered ; 
And  many  else  were  free  to  roam  abroad ; 
But  for  the  main  here  found  they  covert  drear, 
Scarce  images  of  life,  one  here,  one  there. 
Lay  vast  and  edgeways ;  like  a  dismal  cirque 
Of  Druid  stones  upon  a  forlorn  moor, 
When  the  chill  rain  begins  at  shut  of  eve, 
In  dull  November,  and  their  chancel  vault, 
The  Heaven  itself,  is  blinded  throughout  night. 

VOL.  I.  2    F 


434  MR.  KEATS. 

But  I  shall  fill  my  book  with  quotations.  A 
criticism,  entering  more  into  the  nature  of  the 
author's  genius,  may  be  found  by  any  one  who 
wishes  to  see  it,  in  the  "  Indicator."  One  or 
two  passages,  however,  in  the  fine  lyrical  pieces 
in  this  volume,  must  be  noticed.  One  is  on  a 
sculptured  vase,  representing  a  procession  with 
music ;  upon  which  the  author  says,  with  an 
intensity  of  sentiment,  at  once  original  in  the 
idea,  and  going  home,  like  an  old  thought,  to 
the  heart — 

"  Heard  melodies  are  sweet,  but  those  unheard 

Are  sweeter ;  therefore,  ye  soft  pipes,  play  on  ; 
Not  to  the  sensual  ear,  but,  more  endear'd, 

Pipe  to  the  spirit  ditties  of  no  tone  : 
Fair  youth,  beneath  the  trees,  thou  can'st  not  leave 

Thy  song,  nor  ever  can  those  trees  be  bare ; 
Bold  Lover,  never,  never  canst  thou  kiss, 
Though  winning  near  the  goal— yet,  do  not  grieve  ; 
She  cannot  fade,  though  thou  hast  not  thy  bliss ; 

For  ever  wilt  thou  love,  and  she  be  fair." 

Upon  this  beautiful  passage,  a  sapient  critic 
observed,  that  he  should  like  to  know  how 
there  could  be  music  unheard.  The  reader 
will  be  more  surprised  to  know  who  it  was 
that  asked  what  was  the  meaning,  in  the  fol- 


MR.  KEATS.  435 

lowing  ode,  of  a  beaker  "full  of  the  warm 
south."  As  Mr.  Keats's  poems  are  in  few  hands, 
compared  to  what  they  will  be,  I  will  not  apo- 
logize for  transcribing  the  whole  of  a  beautiful 
poem,  which  in  a  very  touching  manner  falls 
in  with  the  poetical  biography  of  the  author, 
having  been  composed  by  him  while  he  lay 
sleepless  and  suffering  under  the  illness  which 
he  felt  to  be  mortal. 

ODE    TO    A    NIGHTINGALE. 

My  heart  aches,  and  a  drowsy  numbness  pains 

My  sense,  as  though  of  hemlock  I  had  drunk, 
Or  emptied  some  dull  opiate  to  the  drains 

One  minute  past,  and  Lethe-wards  had  sunk: 

'Tis  not  through  envy  of  thy  happy  lot, 
But  being  too  happy  in  thine  happiness, 

That  thou,  light-winged  Dryad  of  the  trees. 

In  most  melodious  plot 
Of  beechen  green  and  shadows  numberless, 

Singest  of  summer  in  full-throated  ease. 

Oh  for  a  draught  of  vintage  that  hath  been 
Cool'd  a  long  age.  in  the  deep-delved  earth, 

Tasting  of  Flora  and  the  country  green  ; 

Dance,  and  Proven9al  song,  and  sunburnt  mirth ! 
Oh  for  a  beaker  full  of  the  warm  South, 

Full  of  the  true,  the  blushful  Hippocrene, 

2    F    2 


436  MR.  KEATS. 

With  beaded  bubbles  winking  at  the  brim, 

And  purple-stained  mouth ! 
That  I  might  drink,  and  leave  the  world  unseen, 
And  with  thee  fade  away  into  the  forest  dim  ;  — 

Fade  far  away,  dissolve,  and  quite  forget 

What  thou  among  the  leaves  hast  never  known, 
The  weariness,  the  fever,  and  the  fret, 

Here,  where  men  sit  and  hear  each  other  groan ; 

Where  palsy  shakes  a  few  sad,  last,  grey  hairs  ; 
Where  youth  grows  pale,  and  spectre-thin,  and  dies  ; 

Where  still  to  think  is  to  be  full  of  sorrow 

And  leaden-eyed  despairs  ; 
Where  Beauty  cannot  keep  her  lustrous  eyes, 

Or  new  Love  pine  at  them  beyo.nd  to-morrow. 

Away  !  away  !  for  I  will  fly  to  thee, 

Not  charioted  by  Bacchus  and  his  pards, 
But  on  the  viewless  wings  of  Poesy, 

Though  the  dull  brain  perplexes  and  retards  : 

Already  with  thee  !   tender  is  the  night, 
And  haply  the  Queen-Moon  is  on  her  throne, 

Cluster'd  around  by  all  her  starry  fays  j 

But  here  there  is  no  light, 
Save  what  from  heaven  is  with  the  breezes  blown 

Through  verdurous  glooms  and  winding  mossy  ways. 

I  cannot  see  what  flowers  are  at  my  feet, 

Nor  what  soft  incense  hangs  upon  the  boughs, 

But  in  embalmed  darkness  guess  each  sweet 
Wherewith  the  seasonable  month  endows 

The  grass,  the  thicket,  and  the  fruit-tree  wild  ; 


MR.  KEATS.  4-37 

White  hawthorn,  and  the  pastoral  eglantine, 
Fast  fading  violets  covered  up  in  leaves  ; 
And  mid-May's  eldest  child, 

The  coming  musk-rose  full  of  dewy^wine, 

The  murmurous  haunt  of  flies  on  summer  eves. 

Darkling  I  listen  ;  and  for  many  a  time 

I  have  been  half  in  love  with  easeful  Death ; 
Call'd  him  soft  names  in  many  a  mused  rhyme, 

To  take  into  the  air  my  quiet  breath. 

Now  more  than  ever  seems  it  rich  to  die, 
To  cease  upon  the  midnight  with  no  pain, 

While  thou  art  pouring  forth  thy  soul  abroad 

In  such  an  ecstasy  ! 
Still  wouldst  thou  sing,  and  I  have  ears  in  vain — 

To  thy  high  requiem  become  a  sod. 

Thou  wast  not  born  for  death,  immortal  bird ! 

No  hungry  generations  tread  thee  down ; 
The  voice  I  hear  this  passing  night  was  heard 

In  ancient  days  by  emperor  and  clown  : 

Perhaps  the  self-same  song  that  found  path 
Through  the  sad  heart  of  Ruth,  when,  sick  for  home, 

She  stood  in  tears  amid  the  alien  corn  ; 

The  same  that  ofttime  hath 
Charm'd  magic  casements,  opening  on  the  foam 

Of  perilous  seas,  in  faery  lands  forlorn. — 

Forlorn  !  the  very  word  is  like  a  bell 
To  toll  me  back  from  thee  to  my  sole  self. 

Adieu  !  the  Fancy  cannot  cheat  so  well 
As  she  is  fam'd  to  do,  deceiving  elf ! 


438  MR.  KEATS. 

Adieu  !  adieu  !  thy  plaintive  anthem  fades 
Past  the  near  meadows,  over  the  still  stream, 

Up  the  hill  side  ;  and  now  'tis  buried  deep 

In  the  next  valley  glades. 
Was  it  a  vision,  or  a  waking  dream  ? 

Fled  is  that  music  : — Do  I  wake  or  sleep  ? 

It  was  Lord  Byron,  at  that  time  living  in 
Italy,  drinking  its  wine,  and  basking  in  its 
sunshine,  who  asked  me  what  was  the  mean- 
ing of  a  beaker  "full  of  the  warm  south."  It 
was  not  the  word  beaker  that  puzzled  him : 
College  had  made  him  intimate  enough  with 
that.  But  the  sort  of  poetry  in  which  he  ex- 
celled, was  not  accustomed  to  these  poetical 
concentrations.  At  the  moment  also,  he  was 
willing  to  find  fault,  and  did  not  wish  to  dis- 
cern an  excellence  different  from  his  own. 
When  I  told  him,  that  Mr.  Keats  admired 
his  "  Don  Juan,"  he  expressed  both  surprise 
and  pleasure,  and  afterwards  mentioned  him 
with  respect  in  a  canto  of  it.  He  could  not 
resist,  however,  making  undue  mention  of  one 
of  the  causes  that  affected  his  health.  A  good 
rhyme  about  particle  and  article  was  not  to 
be  given  up.  I  told  him  he  was  mistaken  in 


Mil.  KEATS.  439 

attributing  Mr.  Keats's  death  to  the  critics, 
though  they  had  perhaps  hastened,  and  cer- 
tainly embittered  it ;  and  he  promised  to  alter 
the  passage :  but  a  joke  and  a  rhyme  toge- 
ther !  Those  Italian  shrugs  of  the  shoulders, 
which  I  hope  will  never  be  imported  among 
us,  are  at  once  a  lamentation  and  an  excuse 
for  every  thing ;  and  I  cannot  help  using  one 
here.  At  all  events,  I  have  kept  my  promise, 
to  make  the  erratum  myself  in  case  it  did  not 
appear. 

Mr.  Keats  had  felt  that  his  disease  was  mor- 
tal for  two  or  three  years  before  he  died.  He 
had  a  constitutional  tendency  to  consumption  ; 
a  close  attendance  to  the  death-bed  of  a  be- 
loved brother,  when  he  ought  to  have  been 
nursing  himself  in  bed,  gave  it  a  blow  which 
he  felt  for  months;  and  meanwhile  the  ras- 
cally critics  came  up,  and  roused  an  indig- 
nation in  him,  both  against  them  and  him- 
self, which  he  could  ill  afford  to  endure.  All 
this  trouble  was  secretly  aggravated  by  a  very 
tender  circumstance,  which  I  can  but  allude  to 
thus  publicly,  and  which  naturally  subjected 
one  of  the  warmest  hearts  and  imaginations 


440  MR.  KEATS. 

that  ever  existed,  to  all  the  pangs,  that  doubt, 
succeeded  by  delight,  and  delight,  succeeded 
by  hopelessness  in  this  world,  could  inflict. 
Seeing  him  once  change  countenance  in  a 
manner  more  alarming  than  usual,  as  he  stood 
silently  eyeing  the  country  out  of  window, 
I  pressed  him  to  let  me  know  how  he  felt, 
in  order  that  he  might  enable  me  to  do  what 
I  could  for  him ;  upon  which  he  said,  that 
his  feelings  were  almost  more  than  he  could 
bear,  and  that  he  feared  for  his  senses.  I 
proposed  that  we  should  take  a  coach,  and 
ride  about  the  country  together,  to  vary,  if 
possible,  the  immediate  impression,  which  was 
sometimes  all  that  was  formidable,  and  would 
come  to  nothing.  He  acquiesced,  and  was  re- 
stored to  himself.  It  was  nevertheless  on  the 
same  day,  sitting  on  the  bench  in  Well  Walk, 
at  Hampstead,  nearest  the  heath,*  that  he  told 
me,  with  unaccustomed  tears  in  his  eyes,  that 
"  his  heart  was  breaking."  A  doubt,  however, 
was  upon  him  at  the  time,  which  he  afterwards 
had  reason  to  know  was  groundless ;  and  dur- 

*  The  one  against  the  wall. 


MR.  KEATS.  441 

ing  his  residence  at  the  last  house  that  he  oc- 
cupied before  he  went  abroad,  he  was  at  times 
more  than  tranquil.     At  length,  he  was   per- 
suaded by  his  friends  to  try  the  milder  climate 
of  Italy ;  and  he  thought  it  better  for  others 
as  well  as  himself  that  he  should  go.     He  was 
accompanied  by  Mr.  Severn,  a  young  artist  of 
great  promise,  who  has  since  been  well  known 
as  the  principal  English  student  at  Rome,  and 
who  possessed  all  that  could  recommend  him 
for  a  companion, — old  acquaintanceship,  great 
animal  spirits,  active  tenderness,  and  a  mind 
capable  of  appreciating  that  of  the  poet.     They 
went  first  to  Naples,  and  afterwards  to  Rome  ; 
where,  on  the  27th   of  December,   1820,   our 
author  died  in  the  arms  of  his  friend,  complete- 
ly worn  out,  and  longing  for  the  release.     He 
suffered  so  much  in  his  lingering,  that  he  used 
to  watch  the  countenance  of  the  physician  for 
the  favourable  and  fatal  sentence,  and  express 
his  regret  when  he  found  it  delayed.     Yet  no 
impatience  escaped  him.     He  was  manly  and 
gentle  to  the  last,  and  grateful  for  all  services. 
A  little  before  he  died,  he  said  that  he  "  felt 
the  daisies  growing  over  him."     But  he  made 


442  MR.  KEATS. 

a   still  more  touching   remark   respecting   his 
epitaph.     "  If  any,"  he  said,  "  were  put  over 
him,  he  wished   it  to  consist  of  nothing  but 
these  words :  '  Here  lies  one,  whose  name  was 
writ  in  water  :'  " — so  little  did  he  think  of  the 
more  than  promise  he  had  given  ; — of  the  fine 
and  lasting  things  he  had  added  to  the  stock  of 
poetry.     The  physicians  expressed  their  asto- 
nishment that  he  had  held   out  so  long,  the 
lungs  turning  out,  on  inspection,  to  have  been 
almost  obliterated.      They  said  he  must  have 
lived   upon   the   mere   strength    of  the   spirit 
within  him.     He  was  interred  in  the  English 
burying-ground  at  Rome,  near  the  monument 
of  Caius  Cestius,  where  his  friend  and  poetical 
mourner,  Mr.  Shelley,  was  shortly  to  join  him. 
So  much  for  the  mortal  life  of  as  true  a  man 
of  genius  as  these  latter  times  have  seen  ;  one 
of  those  who  are  too  genuine  and  too  original 
to  be  properly  appreciated  at  first,  but  whose 
time  for  applause  will  infallibly  arrive  with  the 
many,  and  has  already  begun  in  all  poetical 
quarters.     I  venture  to  prophesy,   as  I  have 
done  elsewhere,  that  Mr.  Keats  will  be  known 
hereafter  in  English  literature,  emphatically,  as 


MR.  KEATS.  443 

the  Young  Poet ;  and  that  his  volumes  will  be 
the  sure  companions,  in  field  and  grove,  of  all 
those  who  know  what  a  luxury  it  is  to  hasten, 
with  a  favourite  volume  against  one's  heart, 
out  of  the  strife  of  commonplaces  into  the 
haven  of  solitude  and  imagination. 


MR.  KEATS 


TO 


MR.  LEIGH  HUNT. 


Margate,  May  10th. 
MY  DEAR   HUNT, 

The  little  gentleman  that  sometimes  lurks 
in  a  gossip's  bowl,  ought  to  have  come  in  the 
very  likeness  of  a  roasted  crab,  and  choaked 
me  outright  for  not  having  answered  your 
letter  ere  this :  however,  you  must  not  suppose 
that  1  was  in  town  to  receive  it :  no,  it  followed 
me  to  the  Isle  of  Wight,  and  I  got  it  just  as  I 
was  going  to  pack  up  for  Margate,  for  reasons 
which  you  anon  shall  hear.  On  arriving  at 
this  treeless  affair,  I  wrote  to  my  brother 
George  to  request  C.  C.  C.  to  do  the  thing 


MR.  KEATS.  445 

you  wot  of  respecting  Rimini ;  and  George 
tells  me  he  has  undertaken  it  with  great  plea- 
sure ;  so  I  hope  there  has  been  an  understanding 
between  you  for  many  proofs  :  C.  C.  C.  is  well 
acquainted  with  Bensley.  Now,  why  did  you 
not  send  the  key  of  your  cupboard,  which,  I 
know,  was  full  of  papers  ?  We  would  have 
locked  them  all  in  a  trunk,  together  with  those 
you  told  me  to  destroy,  which  indeed  I  did 
not  do,  for  fear  of  demolishing  receipts,  there 
not  being  a  more  unpleasant  thing  in  the  world 
(saving  a  thousand  and  one  others)  than  to  pay 

a  bill  twice.     Mind  you,  old  W 's  a  "  very 

varmint,"  sharded  in  covetousness : — and  now 
I  am  upon  a  horrid  subject-  what  a  horrid  one 
you  were  upon  last  Sunday,  and  well  you 

handled  it. 

****** 

****** 

What  is  to  be  the  end  of  this  ?  I  must  men- 
tion Hazlitt's  Southey.  O  that  he  had  left  out 
the  grey  hairs ;  or  that  they  had  been  in  any 
other  newspaper  not  concluding  with  such  a 
thunderclap !  That  sentence  about  making  a 
page  of  the  feeling  of  a  whole  life,  appears  to 


446  MR.  KEATS. 

me  like  a  whale's  back  in  the  sea  of  prose.  I 
ought  to  have  said  a  word  on  Shakspeare's 
Christianity.  There  are  two  (passages)  which 
I  have  not  looked  over  with  you,  touching 
the  thing  ;  the  one  for,  the  other  against ;  that 
in  favour  is  in  Measure  for  Measure,  Act.  ii. 
Scene  2. 

Isab.  "  Alas,  alas  ! 

Why  all  the  souls  that  were,  were  forfeit  once  ; 
And  he  that  might  the  Vantage  best  have  took, 
Found  out  the  remedy. 

That  against  is  in  "  Twelfth  Night,"  Act.  iii. 
Scene  2. 

Maria.  "  For  there  is  no  Christian  that  means  to  be  saved 
by  believing  rightly,  can  ever  believe  such  impossible 
passages  of  grossness." 

Before  I  come  to  the  Nymphs,  I  must  get 
through  all  disagreeables.  I  went  to  the  Isle 
of  Wight,  thought  so  much  about  poetry,  so 
long  together,  that  I  could  not  get  to  sleep  at 
night ;  and,  moreover,  I  know  not  how  it  is, 
I  could  not  get  wholesome  food.  By  this 
means,  in  a  week  or  so,  I  became  not  over 


MR.  KEATS.  447 

capable  in  my  upper  stories,  and  set  off  pell- 
mell  for  Margate,  at  least  a  hundred  and  fifty 
miles,  because,  forsooth,  I  fancied  I  should  like 
my  old  lodgings    here,  and  could  contrive  to 
do  without  trees.     Another  thing,   I  was  too 
much  in  solitude,  and  consequently  was  oblig- 
ed to  be  in  continual  burning  of  thought,  as 
an  only  resource.     However,  Tom  is  with  me 
at  present,  and  we  are  very  comfortable.     We 
intend,  though,  to  get  among  some  trees.  How 
have  you  got  on  among  them?    How  are  the 
Nymphs  ?    I  suppose  they  have  led  you  a  fine 
dance.     Where  are  you  now  ? — in  Judea,  Cap- 
padocia,  or  the  parts  of  Lydia  about  Cyrene  ? 
*      *      *      *     I  wager  you  have  given  several 
new  turns  to  the  old  saying,  "  Now  the  maid 
was  fair  and  pleasant  to  look  on,"  as  weh1  as 
made  a  little  variation  in  "  Once  upon  a  time." 
Perhaps,  too,  you  have  rather  varied,  "  Here 
endeth  the  first  lesson."         *         *         *         * 
I  have  asked  myself  so  often  why  I  should  be 
a  poet  more  than  other  men,  seeing  how  great 
a  thing  it  is, — how  great  things  are  to  be  gain- 
ed by  it,  what  a  thing  to  be  in  the  mouth  of 
Fame,— that   at  last  the   idea  has   grown   so 


448  MR.  KEATS. 

monstrously  beyond  my  seeming  power  of  at- 
tainment, that  the  other  day  I  nearly  consent- 
ed with  myself  to  drop  into  a  Phaeton.  Yet 
'tis  a  disgrace  to  fail,  even  in  a  huge  attempt; 
and  at  this  moment  I  drive  the  thought  from 
me.  I  began  my  poem  about  a  fortnight 
since,  and  have  done  some  every  day,  except 
travelling  ones.  Perhaps  I  may  have  done  a 
good  deal  for  the  time  ;  but  it  appears  such  a 
pin's  point  to  me,  that  1  will  not  copy  any  out. 
When  I  consider  that  so  many  of  these  pin- 
points go  to  form  a  bodkin-point,  [God  send  I 
end  not  my  life  with  a  bare  bodkin,  in  its  mo- 
dern sense !]  and  that  it  requires  a  thousand 
bodkins  to  make  a  spear  bright  enough  to 
throw  any  light  to  posterity,  I  see  nothing  but 
continual  up-hill  journeying.  Now,  is  there 
any  thing  more  unpleasant  (it  may  come  among 
the  thousand  and  one)  than  to  be  so  journey- 
ing and  to  miss  the  goal  at  last  ?  But  I  in- 
tend to  whistle  all  these  cogitations  into  the 
sea,  where  I  hope  they  will  breed  storms  vio- 
lent enough  to  block  up  all  exit  from  Russia. 
Does  Shelley  go  on  telling  strange  stories  of 


MR.  KEATS.  449 

the  death  of  kings?*  Tell  him,  there  are 
strange  stories  of  the  death  of  poets.  Some 
have  died  before  they  were  conceived.  "  How 
do  you  make  that  out,  Master  Vellum  ?"  Does 
Mrs.  S.  cut  bread  and  butter  as  neatly  as  ever  ? 
Tell  her  to  procure  some  fatal  scissors,  and 
cut  the  thread  of  life  of  all  to-be-disappointed 
poets.  Does  Mrs.  Hunt  tear  linen  as  straight 
as  ever  ?  Tell  her  to  tear  from  the  book  of 

*  Mr.  Shelley  was  fond  of  quoting  the  passage  here  al- 
luded to  in  Shakspeare,  and  of  applying  it  in  the  most  unex- 
pected manner. 

"  For  God's  sake,  let  us  sit  upon  the  ground, 
And  tell  strange  stories  of  the  deaths  of  kings. 

Going  with  me  to  town  once  in  the  Hampstead  stage,  in 
which  our  only  companion  was  an  old  lady,  who  sat  silent  and 
stiff  after  the  English  fashion,  he  startled  her  into  a  look  of 
the  most  ludicrous  astonishment  by  saying  abruptly ;  "  Hunt, 

'  For  God's  sake,  let  us  sit  upon  the  ground,' "  &c. 

The  old  lady  looked  on  the  coach-floor,  as  if  she  expected  to 
see  us  take  our  seats  accordingly. 

The  reader  who  has  perused  the  preceding  notice  of  Mr, 
Keats,  will  be  touched  by  the  melancholy  anticipations  that 
follow,  and  that  are  made  in  so  good-humoured  a  manner. 
VOL.  I.  2    G 


450  MR.  KEATS. 

life  all  blank  leaves.     Remember  me  to  them 
all ;  to  Miss  K.  and  the  little  ones  all. 

Your  sincere  friend, 
JOHN  KEATS,  alias  JUNKETS.* 

You  shall  hear  where  we  move. 

*  An  appellation  that  was  given  him  in  play   upon  his 
name,  and  in  allusion  to  his  friends  of  Fairy-land. 


END    OF    THE    FIRST    VOLUME. 


LONDON : 

PRINTED    BY    S.  AND  R.   BENTLEY, 
Dorset  Street,  Fleet  Street. 


POPULAR  WORKS 

JUST  PUBLISHED  BY  HENRY  COLBURN, 
NEW  BURLINGTON  STREET. 


i. 

MEMOIRS  of  the  LIFE  and  TRAVELS  of  JOHN  LED- 
YARD,  the  African  Traveller.  From  his  JOURNALS  and  CORRESPON- 
DENCE. Now  first  published,  in  1  vol.  post  8vo.'  10s.  6d. 

II. 

MEMOIRS  of  the  LIFE,  WRITINGS,  and  OPINIONS  of 
DR.  SAMUEL  PARR.  By  the  REV.  W.  FIELD.  8vo.  with  Portrait.  14s. 

III. 

TRAVELS  in  AMERICA  and  ITALY.  By  the  VISCOUNT  de 
CHATEAUBRIAND,  Author  of  "  Travels  in  the  Holy  Land,"  "Beauties  of 
Christianity,"  &c.  In  2  vols.  8vo.  24s.  in  French  21s. 

IV. 

PERSONAL  NARRATIVE  of  the  IRISH  REBELLION 
of  1798.  By  CHARLES  HAMILTON  TEELING.  8vo.  9s.  6d. 

V. 

BURKE'S  DICTIONARY  of  the  PEERAGE  and  BARO- 
NETAGE  of  the  United  Kingdom.  A  new  Edition,  handsomely  printed  in  one 
thick  volume  crown  8vo.  with  upwards  of  1500  Engravings  of  the  Arms,  &c. 
&c.  Price  11.  11s.  6d. 

It  is  presumed  that  this  work  will  he  found  the  most  accurate,  comprehensive, 
and  concise,  which  has  hitherto  appeared  upon  the  subject ;  an  unprecedented 
mass  of  information  having  been  obtained  from  the  highest  sources.  The  li- 
neage of  almost  every  house  is  deduced  from  the  earliest  era,  and  the  genealo- 
gical details  are  interspersed  with  many  interesting  anecdotes  of  the  various  fa- 
milies. The  Baronets  of  Scotland  and  Ireland,  with  their  armorial  bearings, 
Sec.  form  a  new  feature  in  this  edition ;  and  an  Essay  upon  the  origin  of  titles 
of  honour  in  England,  with  Engravings  of  the  various  orders  of  nobility  and 
knighthood,  considerably  augment  the  interest  of  the  whole. 

VI. 

MEMOIRS  of  GEORGE  JEFFREYS,  Lord  High  Chancellor 
of  England  in  the  Reign  of  James  II.  By  HUMPHREY  W.  WOOLRYCH,  Esq. 
In  8vo.,  with  Portrait.  14s. 

"  We  have  seldom  seen  a  better  piece  of  historical  biography  than  the  Me- 
moirs of  Jeffreys." — Literary  Chronicle. 

"  This  is  an  honest  book — the  writer  speaks  his  conviction  freely."— Monthly 
Magazine. 

VII. 

The  LITERARY  CHARACTER;  or,  the  HISTORY  of 
MEN  of  GENIUS,  drawn  from  their  OWN  FEELINGS  and  CONFES- 
SIONS. By  I.  D'ISRAELI.  The  Fourth  Edition,  with  a  LETTER  and 
NOTES,  by  LORD  BYRON.  In  2  vols.  post  8vo.  price  18s. 

VIII. 

PRIVATE  ANECDOTES  of  FOREIGN  COURTS.    By  the 

Author  of  "Memoirs  of  the  Princess  de  Lamballe,"  &c.  In  2  vols.  8vo.  price  28s. 
"  These  volumes  strongly  remind  us  of  Count  Grammont's  Memoirs  ;  they 
possess  the  same  warmth  of  colouring — the  same  slight  and  amusing  sketches 
of  character — and,  above  all,  the  same  unbounded  rage  for  lively  and  good- 
humoured  scandal." — Sun. 


Works  Just  Published  by  Henry  Colburn. 


CONVERSATIONS  of  LORD  BYRON,  noted  during  a  Re- 
sidence with  his  Lordship  at  PISA,  in  the  Years  1821  and  1822.  By  THO- 
MAS MEDWIN,  Esq.  of  the  24th  Light  Dragoons.  New  Edition,  2  vols. 
foolscap  8vo.  14s. 

X. 

MEMOIRS  of  the  LIFE  and  WRITINGS  of  LORD  BY- 
RON. By  the  Author  of  "  The  Memoirs  of  Lady  Hamilton."  Price  14s. 


with  Portrait. 


WORKS  OF  FICTION. 


XI. 


YES   AND  NO.     A  Tale  of  the  Day.      By  the   Author  of 

"  1VT  ATTT.T»A ."        9.  vri\a 


MATILDA."    2  vols. 


XII. 


HERBERT  LACY ;  a  Novel.  By  the  Author  of  "  GRAN- 
BY."  3  vols. 

XIII. 

ENGLISH  FASHIONABLES  ABROAD;  a  Novel.  In  3  vols. 
post  8vo.  31s.  6d. 

"  The  lively  authoress  of  the  present  work  has,  for  the  first  time,  brought 
the  manners  and  morals  of  the  Italian  nobility  into  bold  and  curious  contrast 
with  those  of  their  English  visitors  ;  and  has  drawn  some  strong  pictures  of 
the  laxity  of  English  morals  in  Italy,  where  the  wholesome  restraint  of  public 
opinion,  so  effective  at  home,  has  been  withdrawn  from  our  people  of  rank." — 
New  Monthly  Magazine. 

XIV. 

TALES  of  the  WEST.  By  the  Author  of  "  Letters  from  the 
East,"  &c.  2  vols.  post  8vo. 

XV. 

THE  CLUBS  of  LONDON.  With  Anecdotes  of  their  Mem- 
bers,  Sketches  of  Character  and  Conversation.  In  2  vols.  post  8vo.  18s. 

XVI. 

The  THIRD  VOLUME  of  LANDOR'S  IMAGINARY  CON- 
VERSATIONS  of  LITERARY  MEN  and  STATESMEN.  8vo. 

XVII. 

TALES  of  an  ANTIQUARY,  chiefly  illustrative  of  the  Man- 
ners, Traditions,  and  Remarkable  Localities  of  Ancient  London.  In  3  vols. 
post  8vo. 


PR 

4381 

H85 

1828 

v.l 


Hunt,  Leigh 
Lord  Byron 


PLEASE  DO  NOT  REMOVE 
CARDS  OR  SLIPS  FROM  THIS  POCKET 

UNIVERSITY  OF  TORONTO  LIBRARY